Online hate is stealing the joy from sport

At a tournament in Beijing last week, Coco Gauff was serving at 4–5 in the opening set against China’s 16-year-old Sun Xinran. Gauff stopped midway in a rally, distracted by a flickering advertising board.

The umpire reviewed the incident and asked for the point to be replayed that Gauff won, before taking the match. Critics questioned her timing; she said she raised her hand before Sun struck the ball, having initially been unsure about the flicker. She also said she apologised to Sun later.

This kind of incident that isn’t uncommon in sport: a disputed moment giving fodder to fans to debate. Instead, Gauff found herself confronting a torrent of abuse. A disagreement about a tennis point had become permission to attack a young woman’s identity. “You can dislike me or disagree about what happened without being racist,” she wrote.


Gauff is only 22, and for all her achievements, is still a young individual figuring the world. Remember the 2022 French Open final, when an 18-year-old Gauff lost to Iga Swiatek and broke down in tears. That vulnerability did not vanish with the trophies that followed. In Beijing, the viciousness took a visible toll. After losing in the next round, Gauff described the days gone by as draining. She subsequently withdrew from Wuhan, citing fatigue and the need to recover after a long year.

What Gauff faced has become all too common for women’s players. Last year, Katie Boulter disclosed death threats against herself and her family. Jessica Pegula shared messages wishing harm on her family and a future child. Both pointed to the poison introduced by disgruntled gamblers. Pegula explained that winning offered no protection either since the result only needed to upset somebody’s wager.

Tennis isn’t isolated though; football offers its own wretched catalogue. Álvaro Morata’s missed penalty against Portugal in the 2025 Nations League final prompted threats against him and his children; Spanish police arrested a suspect. Four years earlier, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were subjected to racist abuse after missing penalties in England’s European Championship final defeat. The right to feel disappointed somehow became, in these people’s minds, a licence to dehumanise.

These anonymous online warriors are clearly emboldened by the belief that there will be no consequences of their actions. The athlete is an easy target, their poisonous message traveling into the same phone that carries a parent’s reassurance or a friend’s joke.

Dr Emma Kavanagh, a sport psychologist at Loughborough University, described the consequences on Sport Integrity Australia’s On Side podcast : “increased anxiety, thinking about reduced confidence”. She also recalled athletes telling her: “I don’t know how to deal with the noise anymore.”

Athletes are burdened with expectations to perform, explain themselves to the media, honour sponsor commitments and chase their own ambitions. Add this layer of threats and humiliation, and the toll on their minds and bodies is unimaginable.

It is easy to say, “Oh, just turn off your phone” but Pegula has explained why that is inadequate. Public visibility is part of the job. Nor should protecting athletes mean stripping away the spontaneous exchanges that make following them enjoyable.

Think for a minute about what is at stake. In Paris last year, Gauff arrived for her opening match, having forgotten her racquets. Frances Tiafoe, who had recently committed the same blunder, gleefully teased her online: “you gotta get more professional I’d never do something like this”. She later told Vogue that he had been waiting to see her, ready to repay the ribbing she had given him. The banter helped ease her nerves.

That is the spark Gauff brings to the circuit: able to laugh at herself, trade a joke and let us share in the fun. She owes nobody perpetual cheerfulness but if relentless abuse pushes her into a shell, something precious will be extinguished. And tennis will be poorer for it.