Being in the public spotlight leaves you vulnerable to social media abuse by anyone with an online account, and American tennis prodigy Coco Gauff has called on social media platforms to step in and monitor these situations.
Gauff is coming off a French Open title run where she rallied from a set down to defeat World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka. The Atlanta native won her first Roland Garros title, and second overall Grand Slam singles title. However, Gauff's grass court campaign would come to a quick end, losing to China's Xinyu Wang in their opening round clash at the ongoing Berlin Ladies Open.
Social media abuse should be addressed by the platforms, says Gauff
Prior to her first match in Berlin, Gauff held a conference where she address the rampant and recent surge in abuse received on social media by athletes and celebrities.
“It’s the worst you can get. Death threats, to your family, to yourself,” said the World No.2. “I’ve had people DM my boyfriend and friends about it. Racist comments, like all you can imagine. Nudity, things like that. It’s a gross kind of thing that we have going on in tennis.
“It’s something that we have to keep bringing awareness to. I would love for some of the social media platforms to get involved, not only when it comes to tennis players. Influencers, other athletes, they all get these comments, so it’s something that can be addressed.
“I know the WTA is doing what they can to make us feel protected, but I definitely think that a lot of these platforms can step in as well. I think TikTok does a better job of filtering comments, so you don’t really see it. But Instagram is, for me, the worst with the comment filtering. I see basically everything on there. I try to do it on my own account, to filter certain words, but people get creative and spell it out in different ways."
Gauff is not the only tennis star to voice their frustrations after receiving hateful comments on social media. Carlos Alcaraz, Gael Monfils and Jessica Pegula have all spoken out on the abuse they have received from 'fans'.
"I’m not going to mention exactly some of the messages I’ve received, but they are very heavy and some even scare you,” said Alcaraz. Obviously, when you lose, you receive a lot of messages. Some are quite good; others, quite bad. I prefer not to think about it."
