Marketa Vondrousova has shared the torrent of social media abuse she received moments after walking off the court in Abu Dhabi.
The 2023 Wimbledon champion suffered a straight-set defeat at the hands of Belinda Bencic in Thursday’s quarter-final.
Within minutes, users had flooded Vondrousova’s Instagram DMs and comments, with some sending death threats.
The Abu Dhabi Open was just the second tournament of Vondrousova’s injury comeback. The Czech star shut down her 2024 season after Wimbledon and returned at last month’s Adelaide International.
But she picked up another injury during her second-round match and retired in tears. Vondrousova skipped the Australian Open and made her return at this week’s WTA 500 in Abu Dhabi.
The world No. 37 beat Emma Raducanu and Yulia Putintseva to reach the last eight, where she faced Bencic in a rematch of the Tokyo 2020 gold medal match.
It was Bencic who came out on top again. The wildcard, who recently returned to competition from a pregnancy break, earned a 7-5 6-3 victory, sending Vondrousova out of the tournament.
As soon as she left the court, the Czech star was subject to sickening abuse on social media. Vondrousova shared a screenshot of her message requests to her Instagram story and sarcastically wrote “missed this” with a laughing emoji.
One message read: “F*** you mom you are so bad.” Another said: “Learn to play tennis shame.” Others sent death threats.
Vondrousova shared more screenshots, this time showing the comments on her photos. “And this clown won a GS,” one said of the former Wimbledon winner.
Another user left multiple comments. “What sort of performance is this lmfao? One hit wonder bencic owns you you can’t do anything,” the first read.
“Embarrassing player… worst drop shot in the world.”
Vondrousova is, unfortunately, not the only player who has received an onslaught of abuse after losing a match. It’s a common occurrence on the tennis tour.
Caroline Garcia sparked a conversation about online harassment when she shed light on the death threats she received after crashing out of last year’s US Open.
World No. 2 Iga Swiatek later said: “I feel like we can’t be on the internet and feel like kind of safe anymore. You have to really be careful on what you’re reading, who you’re following.”
Some tournaments and organisations in the tennis world have also started providing players with apps and programmes to filter out hate and abuse.
Content Source: www.express.co.uk