Katie Boulter’s fiance, ATP world No. 12 Alex de Minaur, has responded after the Brit shed light on the vile social media abuse she received after matches. Boulter has received death threats and messages stating: “Hope you get cancer”, which she says have sadly become “the norm” in tennis.
De Minaur has now commended his partner for opening up, though he admitted that every athlete dealt with a torrent of social media abuse and suggested that some refused to access their own accounts because things weren’t “changing”.
Boulter recently gave the BBC an insight into the horrifying messages she received moments after losing matches, often from those who bet money on the result.
“It becomes more apparent every single time you go on your phone. I think it increases in number and it also increases in the level of things that people say. I don’t think there’s anything off the cards now. I think it just kind of shows how vulnerable we are,” the British No. 2 said in a candid interview.
And De Minaur – who has dated Boulter for more than five years and proposed during the off-season – is proud of his fiancee for speaking out.
After losing his opening match at Queen’s on Tuesday, he said: “Yeah, it’s great for her to step up and shine a light into this, which is something that happens to every single tennis player out there. Every single athlete, I would say.
“It’s good to kind of shine a light on everything that happens not only when you lose, that you’re feeling not in the best state emotionally, but then you’ve also got to deal with everything that happens behind the scenes with angry gamblers.
“So it’s always good to shine a light, and hopefully there is something that can be done about it.”
However, the former world No. 6 isn’t sure what action can be taken. “I’m not really sure. It’s something that’s been going on for a while now. It’s something that a lot of people have spoken out against, but it doesn’t change,” he continued.
“I haven’t gone on my social media yet, but I’m sure I’ll have a lot of people not too happy with my result today. But it’s just part of it. I would love for it to be dealt with or fixed somehow, but I’m not too sure what’s the answer.
“Yeah, as I said, every single tennis player on the tour gets thousands, millions of messages every time they lose a match or they cost someone money betting on them. So it’s something that you’ve kind of, yeah, you’ve gotten used to.”
One measure players could take for themselves would be to avoid social media altogether. But De Minaur says some have already done so.
“Well, you see a lot of players, athletes already, that don’t deal with their own social media just because of that. There is a lot of good that comes out of it, but there is also a dark side,” he added.