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Australian tennis player Destanee Aiava says she will be retiring at the end of the season as the 25-year-old hit out at a \u201cracist, misogynistic, homophobic and hostile\u201d culture in the sport. <\/p>\n
Aiava, who reached a career-high of 147 as a teenager, described tennis as her \u201ctoxic boyfriend\u201d and said she was sending a \u201cginormous f— you\u201d to those who had tore her down. She added the sport was unwelcoming to \u201canyone who doesn\u2019t fit the mould\u201d in a scathing retirement post on Instagram. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to say a ginormous f— you to everyone in the tennis community who\u2019s ever made me feel less than,\u201d she said. \u201cF— you to every single gambler who\u2019s sent me hate or death threats.<\/p>\n
\u201cF— you to the people who sit behind screens on social media, commenting on my body, my career, or whatever the fuck they want to nitpick. And f— you to a sport that hides behind so-called class and gentlemanly values.<\/p>\n
\u201cBehind the white outfits and traditions is a culture that\u2019s racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to anyone who doesn\u2019t fit the mould.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aiava, currently the world No 321, reached the second-round of her home Australian Open<\/a> in 2025, where she lost to Danielle Collins in a three-set thriller <\/a>that saw the American player booed for blowing kisses to the crowd. <\/p>\n A former junior prodigy, the Melbourne-born Aiava said tennis \u201ctook things from me\u201d including her \u201crelationship with my body, my health, my family, my self worth\u201d and said she would be starting fresh in 2027. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cLife is not meant to be lived in misery and half assed,\u201d Aiava said. \u201cMy ultimate goal is to be able to wake up every day and genuinely say that I love what I do \u2013 which I think everyone deserves a chance at.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m 25, turning 26 this year and I feel so far behind everyone else, like I\u2019m starting from scratch. I\u2019m also scared. But that\u2019s better than living a life that\u2019s misaligned, or being around constant comparison and losing yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-481571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}