Speaking after her round-of-32 defeat to Francesca Jones at the Nottingham Open on Tuesday, British number four Harriet Dart called for the introduction of identification measures when creating social media accounts.
“The amount of abuse that we all get is pretty mind blowing,” Dart said.
“The WTA are obviously trying to do something about it with the Threat Matrix system, but until Instagram verify ID or something, sadly, people can keep reopening accounts.”
Boulter’s partner and world number 12 Alex de Minaur said that an increasing number of athletes do not deal with their own social media accounts because of abuse.
“There is a lot of good that comes out of it [social media], but there is also a dark side,” he said.
Speaking before she faces Boulter in the last 16 at Nottingham on Wednesday, British number three Sonay Kartal called for collective action.
“These people can just create endless accounts. And I don’t necessarily know who is to be held responsible, I don’t think it’s solely one person,” she said.
“If I can help report it, if WTA can help report it, we’ll come together and try our best to eliminate it. I think that’s the best way to get rid of it.”
Figures provided by data science firm Signify, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) – show that, in 2024, about 8,000 abusive, violent or threatening messages were sent publicly to 458 tennis players through their social media accounts.
But for Dart, social media abuse goes far beyond tennis.
“This isn’t just a tennis issue,” she said. “This is a global issue, and it’s not just a sport issue. It’s everywhere. It’s even regular people who I’m sure get trolled or whatever by certain people or individuals.
“We live in the 21st century, and are we not ID-ing people on social media. You can connect people, and then people can be found and stuff. Because it’s pretty horrific, the abuse that all of us get. That’s why I feel like a lot of the time, social media can be like a big negative.
“We also have very impressionable young females, young males on social media these days. I am an experienced athlete who’s gone through this for a very, very long time. I know what they say to me doesn’t mean anything.
“But for people who are a lot younger and inexperienced, I think it can be very worrying and very dangerous too.”
British men’s number one Jack Draper shared Boulter’s concerns about future generations.
“I think we’re lucky enough to maybe have grown up into social media, whereas, you know, the generation coming up are growing up with it,” he said.
“So they know nothing different. I think it’s so easy to spread online hate. It’s not easy, especially, I think she said, when you’re younger and you lose a match or something, and you come into the professional tour and getting all this abuse saying they will come around your house and do this and that. It’s not nice.”
World men’s number two Carlos Alcaraz said he doesn’t look at social media after he loses because abuse is “difficult to deal with”.
“I have seen a lot of players that have received a lot of messages from the gamblers, from the people.
“If I have to give an advice, [it would be] not to see social media when things are not going well, because people sometimes can be really dangerous.”
