Iga Swiatek voices concerns over player safety on social media amid rising 'hatred'
Iga Swiatek recently expressed her concerns about the safety of tennis players on social media amid rising hatred. Swiatek is in contention in the 2024 US Open women's singles draw.
She advanced to the third round by defeating Japan's Ena Shibahara 6-0, 6-1 on Thursday, August 29. She hit four aces and broke Shibahara five times to finish the match in a little over an hour.
After the match, she attended the customary press conference, where a journalist, in light of Caroline Garcia's admission, asked her to comment on tennis players facing abuse on social media. Swiatek said she has stopped checking messages from unknown senders on her social media accounts.
"It happened to me a couple of times, although I don't go to that inbox anymore, I focus on looking at the messages of my close people. Of course there is a lot of hatred, in my case I try to avoid it every time I browse the internet," she said (as quoted by Puntodebreak).
The World No. 1 then wondered if most of the hate stems from the betting community, saying:
"If it is related to betting? I don't know the numbers, I never researched those topics, but I'm sure people get very excited when it comes to making or losing money. It will probably have a big impact, but I don't know what the numbers are, I imagine it will be easy to check," Swiatek added.
Iga Swiatek: "It would be nice if we all followed in the footsteps of Caroline Garcia"
During the same presser at the 2024 US Open, Iga Swiatek suggested her colleagues follow Caroline Garcia's lead in sensitizing people about how hateful messages can affect a tennis player's life.
"It would be nice if we all followed in the footsteps of Caro(line Garcia), try to educate people, or maybe hope for some solutions in the future, maybe use AI to make everything safer for us. I feel that we can no longer be on the internet and feel safe, you have to be very careful with what you read," Iga Swiatek said.
Caroline Garcia, who suffered a first-round defeat to Renata Zarazua at the US Open on August 27th, took to X (formerly Twitter) and posted snippets of the spiteful messages she received after the loss. She requested the public to put an end to the malicious practice.
Iga Swiatek, still alive in the US Open, is slated to take on 25th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the third round.