Sports fans can go to extreme lengths for their favorite players or teams-naming their children after them, getting tattoos in their honor, and more. While most of these gestures are harmless, tennis star Jessica Pegula recently experienced the dark side of sports fanaticism firsthand.
Monday, June 2, was a tough day for Pegula. She lost in the fourth round of Roland Garros to French wildcard Lois Boisson by scores of 6-3, 4-6, 4-6-marking her second-best run at the French Open.
However, Pegula’s biggest challenge wasn’t on the court-it was online. Furious fans flooded her social media accounts with threatening messages, including death threats. This time, Pegula refused to stay silent.
Disappointed fans or furious gamblers?
In an Instagram Stories post on Wednesday, Pegula shared some of the messages she received during and after the match. Among the less aggressive ones were:
“You sold this match on purpose. Can’t wait until Karma spends the block back on you.”
“Just quit playing tennis and enjoy your father’s money! You are literally the most useless top 10 player ever.”
Pegula accompanied the screenshots with a message:
“These bettors are insane and delusional, and I don’t allow DMs. I try to remember to shut my comments off during tournament weeks, but they always find a way to my timeline.”
The tennis star added that these types of messages don’t really affect her personally, but she questioned whether other sports deal with this level of abuse:
“Does any other sport deal with this at our level? I’d love to know because it seems to be predominantly tennis. It’s so disturbing.”
Pegula isn’t the only one affected
The world No. 3 emphasized that she’s not alone in facing this kind of harassment.
“Every person on tour deals with it. It’s so bad,” Pegula stated. “Those are just really small snippets. I get told my family should get cancer and die from people on here on a regular basis. Absolutely crazy.”
Fortunately, Pegula has strong support. In addition to her family and friends, her fans flooded her Instagram account with messages of encouragement, helping her push forward toward her next challenge.
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