French Open champion Iga Swiatek calls for people to show more empathy after suffering online abuse
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Published 18/08/2023 at 14:49 GMT
World No.1 Iga Swiatek has hit out at online abuse she has received following her victory against Qinwen Zheng at the Cincinnati Masters. The 22-year-old defeated the Chinese tennis star 3-6 6-1 6-1. But said she received abuse after dropping the first set. The 22-year-old called for fans to show more empathy towards tennis players online and said she was “proud of my results”.
Top 5 points - Iga Swiatek
Iga Swiatek has called for people to be "more thoughtful” about what they post on the internet.
The Polish tennis player is currently in action at the Cincinnati Masters and on Thursday defeated China’s Qinwen Zheng 3-6 6-1 6-1, to set up a quarter-final match against Wimbledon Champion Marketa Vondrousova.
But the 22-year-old, who has won four times on the WTA Tour this season, got off to a difficult start in the match, uncharacteristically making 23 unforced errors to lose the first set.
Despite that, the world No.1 rallied, breaking Zheng three times to claim the second set, before ultimately going on to win the match.
During her post-match press conference, Swiatek revealed that she had been the target of online abuse and called for tennis fans to show more empathy online.
“Today’s match wasn’t perfect,” she said. “We all saw that. But the amount of hate and criticism me and my team get after losing a set is ridiculous.
“I want to encourage people to be more thoughtful when they comment on the internet.
The three-time French Open champion also claimed that this wasn't the first time she had been the target of online abuse, revealing that she was critcised by fans online following her loss to Barbora Krejcikova in the final of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships back in February.
During that match, Swiatek dropped the opening set 4-6 to the Czech, but despite having previously won the Qatar TotalEnergies Open a week before, the 22-year-old defiantly said she was "proud of my results” but was disappointed at the reaction online.
“We all sacrifice a lot. We’re all working really hard to be in that place. We’re always giving 100 per cent,” she added. "It’s sad for me to see that people I work with and myself, we’re really judged.
“I was pretty proud of my results but people really just saw the last match and that I lost in the final [in Dubai],” Swiatek said.
“I’m putting a lot of energy for it not to hit too deeply, but I realised that sometimes people - I don’t know if they’re my fans or not but they want me to play better - cause me to waste a lot of energy to ignore them.”
It’s not the first time that the tennis star has called out online abuse.
Last year, Swiatek hit out at online trolls during her successful campaign at Roland Garros, noting that other tennis stars have suffered similar experiences after losing.
She said: ““They have a bad impact and it's not helpful. They don't know what is going on in our lives. These people should stop and think it through.”
Wimbledon runner-up, Ons Jabeur, also claimed that a large part of the online trolling originated from people betting on the sport.
"Honestly, you win, you lose, you get hate messages no matter what you do," the Tunisian said. "We need more humanity, more nice people on this earth but I don't think you can change the mentality of some bettors.
"They have nothing to do in their life and they're spending money on you and probably, what, they lost a couple of bucks on Iga losing a set."
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