Aussie tennis star Alex De Minaur reveals his theory about why his girlfriend Katie Boulter has copped sickening online abuse - and even death threats against her family
Alex de Minaur has supported his British fiancée and fellow tennis star Katie Boulter after she opened up on the social media abuse she receives.
Boulter shared her experiences with BBC Sport to highlight the issue of professional players receiving toxic messages online.
The 28-year-old's examples included a message telling her to buy 'candles and a coffin for your entire family' with a reference to her 'grandmother's grave if she's not dead by tomorrow', one stating she should 'go to hell' as she had cost the poster money, and another stating 'hope you get cancer '.
Boulter said: 'I just wonder who the person is that has sent that. I don't think it's something that I would ever say to my worst enemy. It's just an awful, awful thing to say to anyone. It's horrible.
'It shows how vulnerable we are. You really don't know if this person is on site. You really don't know if they're nearby or if they know where you live or anything like that.'
Following the interview, a fired up de Minaur has called for 'angry gamblers' to be held accountable.
'It's great for her to step up and shine a light into this, which is something that happens to every single tennis player out there. Every single athlete, I would say,' he said.
'Hopefully there is something that can be done about it. It's something that's been going on for a while now. It's something that a lot of people have spoken out against, but it doesn't change.'
Boulter believes much of the abuse comes from gamblers who have lost money and de Minaur, speaking his his surprise defeat to Jiri Lehecka at Queen's, agreed.
'When you lose, you're feeling not in the best state emotionally, but then you've also got to deal with everything that happens behind the scenes with angry gamblers,' he said.
'I haven't gone on my social media yet, but I'm sure I'll have a lot of people not too happy with my result.
'Every single tennis player on the tour gets thousands, millions of messages every time they lose a match or they cost someone money betting on them. So it's something that you've gotten used to.
'I would love for it to be dealt with or fixed somehow, but I'm not too sure what's the answer.'
The WTA and International Tennis Federation on Tuesday published their first report into online abuse of players after the launch of the Threat Matrix service last January.
The report reveals 1.6million posts and comments were analysed, with around 8,000 directed at 458 players identified as abusive, violent or threatening.
Five players received 26 per cent of the total abuse, while 40 per cent of the messages were identified as coming from angry gamblers.
Fifteen accounts have been identified to law enforcement because of the serious and prolific nature of the messages, while details have been shared with security teams at tennis events to prevent individuals accessing venues.
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