D’Arcy Maine, ESPN
NEW YORK — Caroline Garcia, a US Open semifinalist in 2022, on Wednesday shared some of the derogatory online messages she has received following recent losses and pointed to “unhealthy betting” as one of the reasons players are targeted on social media.
Other players echoed Garcia’s lament, including defending champion Coco Gauff, who said: “You could be having a good day, and then somebody will literally tell you, ‘Oh, go kill yourself.’ You’re, like, ‘OK, thanks.'”
Garcia, a 30-year-old from France who has been ranked as high as No. 4, was seeded 28th at Flushing Meadows but was eliminated by Renata Zarazúa 6-1, 6-4 in the first round Tuesday. Zarazúa is ranked 92nd and is making her US Open debut.
Garcia, in a lengthy post on X, wrote about the “hundreds” of such messages directed her way and offered examples of “just a few,” including one telling her she should consider suicide and another that read, “I hope your mom dies soon.”
“And now, being 30 years old, although they still hurt, because at the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl working really hard and trying my best, I have tools and have done work to protect myself from this hate. But still, this is not OK,” Garcia wrote. “It really worries me when I think about younger players coming up, that have to go through this. People that still haven’t yet developed fully as a human and that really might be affected by this hate.”
In her post, Garcia also raised the issue of the sport and tournaments partnering with betting companies and speculated on whether that has contributed to a rise in such behavior.
“Tournaments and the sport keeps partnering with betting companies, which keep attracting new people to unhealthy betting,” Garcia noted. “The days of cigarette brands sponsoring sports are long gone. Yet, here we are promoting betting companies, which actively destroy the life of some people.”
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