{"id":51295,"date":"2025-08-07T21:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51295\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T21:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:06:07","slug":"elina-svitolina-becomes-latest-womens-tennis-player-to-receive-death-threats-from-angry-gamblers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51295\/","title":{"rendered":"Elina Svitolina Becomes Latest Women’s Tennis Player to Receive Death Threats from Angry Gamblers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Women's<\/a>Photo by John Fornander on Unsplash <\/p>\n

\"Kris<\/p>\n

Tennis player Elina Svitolina struck back at frustrated gamblers, who targeted her with death threats after a straight-sets loss to Naomi Osaka this week during the National Bank Open in Montreal. <\/p>\n

One poster hoped that Russia \u201ckills all you (expletive) Ukrainians\u201d\u00a0in the ongoing war in Svitolina\u2019s homeland. Svitolina, who posted screenshots of the messages on Instagram, noted the abuse also included racial slurs against her husband<\/a>, the \u201cFrench tennis player Gael Monfils, who is Black.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Svitolina called out the abusers on Instagram, saying: \u201cTo all the bettors: I\u2019m a mum before I\u2019m an athlete. The way you talk to women \u2014 to mothers \u2014 is SHAMEFUL. If your mothers saw your messages, they\u2019d be disgusted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, English tennis player Katie Boulter revealed that she also received death threats despite winning her French Open<\/a> match against Carole Monnet, 6-7, \u00a06-1, 6-1. The abuse started streaming in after Boulter lost the first set tie-break.<\/p>\n

\u201cHope you get cancer,\u201d one message read. <\/p>\n

The Women\u2019s Tennis Association (WTA) & International Tennis Federation (ITF) then released their first-ever report<\/a> on online abuse this summer. The study revealed that 458 players received more than 8,000 abusive comments and posts during the 2024 season. Notably, 40% of the abuse came from \u201cangry gamblers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Threat Matrix\u2019 Unlocks Tennis Report Findings, Helps Protect Players <\/p>\n

The WTA & ITF began using Signify Group\u2019s\u00a0Threat Matrix\u00a0service in January 2024 to protect approximately 8,300 players and their families from online abuse and threatening communications. The platform combines artificial intelligence with human analysis\u2014including specialists in risk and fixated threat assessment\u2014to monitor major social media platforms in more than 40 languages. <\/p>\n

For the first-ever report released under the auspices of the WTA & ITF, Threat Matrix AI analyzed 1.6 million posts and comments last year. Analysts then verified that 8,000 posts or comments sent from 4,200 accounts were deemed abusive, violent, or threatening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other key findings included: <\/p>\n

\u2022 Fifteen cases of highly threatening abuse were investigated with evidence provided to law enforcement for assessment and action (four related to Grand Slams, one at the Paris Olympic Games, and 10 from across the tours)
\u2022 Three of the 15 cases were submitted to the FBI, while 12 were sent to other national law enforcement bodies
\u2022 Event security teams (for tours and Grand Slams) received relevant account information to help ban the individuals from venues <\/p>\n

CasinoBeats reached out to the WTA for further comment on how cases were resolved. We\u2019ll make sure that this story is updated accordingly in the future. <\/p>\n

Players like Svitolina, who receive direct abuse, can utilize Threat Matrix for support. A designated email address is available to share any related content from the incident. After a threat assessment is completed, players are advised on available security bodies to manage risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Threat Matrix received 56 reports of concerning behavior from 28 players in 2024. The WTA noted that most came \u201cin the final quarter of the year due to heightened awareness of the service.\u201d Angry gamblers were responsible for the majority of direct abuse (77%), with concerning communications directed toward players following lost bets. \u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by John Fornander on Unsplash Tennis player Elina Svitolina struck back at frustrated gamblers, who targeted her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-51295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51295","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=51295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}