Tennis player Elina Svitolina faces hateful abuse after Montreal loss, blames ‘shameful’ bettors

MONTREAL, Canada (AP) — Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina has spoken out about the deluge of hateful abuse she received online from frustrated gamblers after losing a match in Canada, including messages wishing her death and celebrating Russia killing her compatriots.

Following her straight-sets loss to Naomi Osaka in the quarterfinals of the National Bank Open on Tuesday night, Svitolina posted screenshots of the messages on Instagram.

The abuse was directed at her, while other racial slurs also targeted her husband, the French tennis player Gael Monfils, who is Black.

One abuser hoped that Russia “kills all you (expletive) Ukrainians” in the war raging in Svitolina’s country.

“To all the bettors: I’m a mum before I’m an athlete,” Svitolina wrote in her Instagram story. “The way you talk to women — to mothers — is SHAMEFUL. If your mothers saw your messages, they’d be disgusted.”

American tennis player Coco Gauff said threats are not uncommon.

“After I lost, I got like murder threats, I got told they were going to find my mom and stuff,” she said Thursday after teaming with McCartney Kessler to win the women’s doubles title in Montreal.

“I used to take it really to heart when I was younger. But now, not as much.”

She said social media platforms could do “a lot better.”

“TikTok does a great job of blocking, deleting people and deleting pages as soon as something hurtful is commented, and I don’t think Instagram and X do the same with their requirements,” she said.

American Taylor Townsend, who finished runner-up with Chinses partner Zhang Shuai, says online abuse “happens every tournament.”

“It’s not anything new, and it sucks, but it’s also part of the world that we live in,” she said. “We’re in a digital world where everything is online and you’re subjugated to people who are here watching you and seeing how hard that you’re working. And then there are a lot of people who don’t and who are just hiding behind screens.

“So it’s really unfortunate, but it’s a part of just being a public figure and being front-facing and playing a sport.”

Townsend said the WTA and ATP are trying to crack down and online abuse and protect players.

“When you have people who are betting and who are doing these things and are abusing you online, you never know how that can translate into the real world. So you have to be proactive with those type of things,” she said.

Earlier this year, British player Katie Boulter said she received death threats during the French Open targeting her and her family, while the WTA and ITF called on betting companies to do more to stem the flood of online abuse players face on social media.

Boulter told the BBC in an interview that online abuse has become the norm and that she thinks many of the messages are sent by people who are placing bets on tennis matches.

Her comments coincided with the WTA and ITF publishing a first season-wide report into online abuse, showing that 458 tennis players were targeted by more than 8,000 abusive comments and posts on social media in 2024. The report said 40% of the abuse came from “angry gamblers.”

— With files from The Canadian Press

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The Associated Press