Ellen Perez received a lengthy message full of disgusting insults following her Monterrey as an angry bettor even sent death and rape threats to the Australian doubles star.
The Australian, who is solely focused on doubles and sits at No. 18 on the WTA rankings, played alongside her usual partner Lyudmyla Kichenok at the WTA 500 tournament in Monterrey. And the second-seeded Australian/Ukrainian combination easily made it past their opening match at the Mexican event before Leolia Jeanjean and Maria Kozyreva pulled off a quarterfinal upset and won 7-6 (4) 6-4.
Shortly after the loss, Perez received a gnarling message and she decided to post it. In the message, a man – who evidently bet on the Australian and Kychenok to win their Monterrey quarterfinal match – insulted the 29-year-old in several terrifying ways before expressing hope to see her die or commit suicide, before shockingly adding that he would love to see the WTA player raped.
The former doubles world No. 7 posted the full message on her Instagram Story and captioned it: “I love a good love letter.” The post has since been deleted.
Before Perez, something similar happened to Elina Svitolina
Earlier this month, Svitolina was targeted by some vile abuse following a Montreal loss to Naomi Osaka. In a post shared on Instagram, the 30-year-old Ukrainian revealed that she received death threats and got insulted as a player, woman and a mother.
“To all the bettors: I'm a mom before I'm an athlete. The way you talk to women – to mothers – is SHAMEFUL. If your moms saw your messages, they'd be disgusted…” Svitolina captioned her post at the time.
Elina Svitolina showed the abusive & horrific messages she received from bettors after her loss to Naomi Osaka in Montreal.
Her response to them:
“To all the bettors: I'm a mom before I'm an athlete. The way you talk to women – to mothers – is SHAMEFUL. If your moms saw your… pic.twitter.com/nG7jA87Bw3
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) August 6, 2025
Unfortunately, social media abuse is well present in tennis and there are no signs of it going away anytime soon.
