No tennis player is immune to online abuse. While sometimes they speak up against it, most times they simply ignore it and move on. In December 2023, it was announced that a new monitoring system would protect the players from online hate/abuse. However, even after almost eight months, the situation is persistent! On August 29, France’s Caroline Garcia took to social media, highlighting some hateful “messages”, following her US Open R1 loss to Renata Zarazua. Shortly after, Frances Tiafoe, who himself has been “cooked”, came forward to support the 30-year-old.

The unseeded Mexican Zarazúa, who had only reached the second round of a Grand Slam once before, advanced to the second round of the US Open with a  6-1, 6-4 victory over the French player. While the Mexican extended her tally to two, Garcia received cyberbullying that included her family, too. The tweet having snippets of abuse read, “These are some of the messages I received lately after losing some matches. Just a few of them. There are hundreds.”

Furthermore, in her defense she tried to emphasize, “And now, being 30 years old, although they still hurt, because at the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl working really hard and trying my best, I have tools and have done work to protect myself from this hate. But still, this is not ok.”

Moreover, she raised her concern for the younger players, who “haven’t yet developed fully as a human” can’t stand such “hate” after an already “emotionally” draining match loss. Not just that, she also cited “unhealthy betting,” as one of the major reasons for this brutal online hate. You wouldn’t deny that losing a bet can be frustrating, but resorting to hate isn’t the solution. Tiafoe’s thoughts align with this!

After advancing to the third round of the US Open, American player Frances Tiafoe commented on her post during a press conference. “I get it. I’ve been getting cooked for a long time. It’s never good. People are saying outlandish stuff. It’s just wild. You know, you have players working all their lives trying to compete at the highest level. You don’t know people’s circumstances, what they’re going through, and how this affects people.” 

Furthermore, he advised Garcia that no matter what, these people would always follow them, “The biggest thing I would tell players, other colleagues, men, women… these people are going to follow your life, regardless. Don’t hang your head so low on these things. You don’t care about anything they do. You’re the important person.” Interestingly, Tiafoe spoke about this in the past as well.

Many players expressed solidarity with Caroline Garcia after her social media post. This highlights that online harassment is a pervasive issue affecting athletes at all levels. Jessica Pegula wrote, “Yep. The constant death threats and family threats are normal now. Win or lose.” Bianca Andreescu said she tries not to look at those negative comments. Even players Paula Badosa, Madison Keys, and Katie Boulter stood up to reflect their support for Garcia.

Grand Slam tournaments have been actively working to shield athletes from online harassment. In 2022, the French Open partnered with a company using AI to filter harmful comments on players’ social media. Additionally, the organizers of the US Open, Wimbledon, the WTA Tour, and the ITF Tour recently announced a joint initiative to monitor for abusive content on various social media platforms. “Many before me have raised the subject,” Garcia said. “And still, no progress has been made.” 

In the women’s tour, no one knows more about online abuse than Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek. How do they tackle all these things in their lives?

Caroline Garcia may take inspiration from Gauff-Swiatek’s solution to online harassment

After hearing about Garcia’s incident, Gauff revealed that there were days when she used to spend 30 minutes blocking abusive accounts on her social media. “You could be having a good day, and then somebody will literally tell you, ‘Oh, go kill yourself.‘ You’re, like, ‘OK, thanks,’“ said the 20-year-old American tennis star. 

Gauff has now become more mature, and her advice to all other players is they should use it to motivate themselves, let it hurt them or else completely ignore it. Ignoring was never an option for her, so she chose the first one to enlighten the fire inside her with all these negative comments.

For Iga Swiatek, it’s more about avoiding reading comments during these intense periods. She doesn’t feel like answering or explaining each and everything that comes up on her newsfeeds. Swiatek knows there are a lot of people who support her and so, according to her, the love and hatred on social media have now become more of a part of her life. 

“I only block people who are negative, not my fans. When you deal with the daily harassment I deal with every single day. Death threats, racism, body shaming. etc. It is exhausting. So I try my best to spare myself,” said Swiatek.

So, Caroline Garcia needs to choose either Gauff’s way of tackling these negatives or simply ignore them, like Swiatek. What solves this problem according to you?