The digital hatred hits several tennis players: But the athletes defend themselves against the trolls.
Image: Lando Hass
Tennis professionals are being threatened and insulted more and more often on social media. Now the athletes are fighting against digital trolls. With the help of former military officers, police investigators and investigative journalists, they hunt down the culprits online.
Da they are again, this news. As always when Dustin Brown has just played a tennis match. “Fuck your family, you gay black”, it says this time. Or: “I hope you die of corona or cancer.” Also: “I’ll fuck you the next time you’re near Mannheim.” And: “I wish you a painful death, you stinking betting fraudster negro! “This is the news that the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has received.
For tennis professionals like Brown, it is part of the bitter everyday life to fish messages like this out of the mailboxes of their own social media accounts. This was also the case on this day in May after a tennis tournament in Höhr-Grenzhausen in Rhineland-Palatinate. Insults – often racist in his case – plus threats and bad curses. The list is long. “It is now more of a surprise when there is no news afterwards,” he says.
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