{"id":519095,"date":"2026-03-04T23:38:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519095\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T23:38:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:38:53","slug":"lucrezia-stefanini-says-she-and-her-family-were-threatened-before-a-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519095\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucrezia Stefanini says she and her family were threatened before a match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian tennis<\/a> player Lucrezia Stefanini said she and her family were threatened when she received a text message featuring a photo of a gun before a qualifying match for the Indian Wells tournament in California \u2014 in an apparent attempt to affect the result for betting purposes.<\/p>\n

Stefanini explained what happened in a video posted on Instagram on Monday from the BNP Paribas Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI received a WhatsApp message in which I was threatened over winning yesterday\u2019s match.<\/p>\n

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“They threatened me and my family and named my parents, the place where I was born and they sent me a photo of a gun,\u201d Stefanini said.<\/p>\n

The 138th-ranked Stefanini was beaten 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 by Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva in the first round of qualifying at the WTA 1000 event \u2014 the highest level in women\u2019s tennis outside of the four grand slams and WTA Finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m making this video and explaining what happened because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s right to put me under this pressure and unease before a match,\u201d Stefanini said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lucrezia Stefanini posted a video in Italian on social media.\u00a0Instagram<\/p>\n

\u201cI immediately alerted the WTA, which provided me with more security\u2026 The entire tournament mobilised to make me feel safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite it all, I fought until the end to try and win my match, because I can\u2019t permit these people to intimidate me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italian Tennis and Padel Federation president Angelo Binaghi called the episode \u201cintolerable.”<\/p>\n

\u201cSending images of weapons, knowledge of personal information and intimidation toward an athlete marks an increase of disturbing quality that doesn\u2019t have anything to do with sports,\u201d Binaghi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever thinks they can condition a match through fear \u2026 should know that they have entered criminal territory,” Binaghi added. “This kind of behaviour deserves an immediate legal response.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Stefanini is ranked No.138 in the world.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Mattia Bellucci, another Italian player, was also recently threatened via social media.<\/p>\n

The International Tennis Integrity Agency routinely collaborates on investigations of match-fixing in the sport and the WTA and International Tennis Federation said last year that in 2024 it had tracked 8,000 online posts and comments labeled as abusive, violent or threatening.<\/p>\n

There have been moves to employ artificial intelligence to block threatening comments.<\/p>\n

Still, Binaghi suggested that besides \u201cidentifying and punishing those responsible,\u201d that \u201ca drastically strengthened international system\u201d is required to keep athletes safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian tennis player Lucrezia Stefanini said she and her family were threatened when she received a text message…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-519095","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\/519095","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=519095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}