Tennis star Jessica Pegula is calling out the social media users who send athletes threatening messages based on their on-court performances.
Pegula, 31, shared a thread via her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, June 4, that included screenshots of some of the messages she allegedly received after her fourth-round loss in the French Open on Monday. She noted that the comments mostly came from sports bettors.
“These [bettors] are insane and delusional,” Pegula wrote. “And I don’t allow dms and try to remember when to shut my comments off during tournament weeks but they always find a way to my timeline. This stuff has never really bothered me much but does any other sport deal with this to our level? I’d love to know because it seems to be [predominantly] tennis?? It’s so disturbing.”
The screenshots showed commenters calling her a “trash can,” “low class” and a waste of oxygen. One user also shared an image that read “You Die.”
“You sold this match on purpose,” wrote another commenter. “Can’t wait until Karma spends the block back on you. Hopefully your first child will be a still birth.”
Pegula added that she’s not the only tennis pro to receive such messages.
“Every person on tour deals with it. It’s so bad,” she wrote. “Those are just really small snippets. I get told my family should get cancer and die from people on here on a regular basis. Absolutely crazy.”
“Again I’m glad this stuff has never really gotten to me (can’t reason with crazy) but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get to other players or make it ok,” Pegula continued. “When fans get on us as athletes to be tougher and stronger and etc etc. just realize you prob don’t have people sending you death threats every day and hoping your family dies and you give birth to a still born child.”
Pegula also noted that simply avoiding social media isn’t an option for a professional athlete.
“And don’t say ‘stay off social media’ well it’s unavoidable because our careers and sponsors are based off of posting on social media. These are comments I get with my DMs and comments turned off,” she concluded.
Pegula’s posts came the same day that Houston police revealed it had identified the sports bettor responsible for sending threatening messages to Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. after he had a rough outing earlier in the year against the Cincinnati Reds.
A spokesperson for the department told ESPN that the man was intoxicated at the time he sent the threats and that no charges were filed.
McCullers was forced to hire security after he said the posts included threats to “find my kids and murder them.”
