Tennis players are often under intense scrutiny, but as the recent case involving Coco Gauff showed, they sometimes have to deal with far more than they bargained for. With players being on social media more, the cases of them being subjected to the same have been increasing in recent times. The WTA, for its part, has not been sitting idly, as its Chairperson, Valerie Camillo, has made strong endorsements of the player protection programs it has in place.

“The WTA is very engaged in navigating the complexities of social media to the best of our ability,” said Camillo while talking on the ‘Served with Andy Roddick’ podcast. “We have very specific programs and capabilities to support our athletes…Yes, you know, and, and again, like it—there is some work in identifying who, you know, and getting that information, but when we do, we have a, a platform called Threat Matrix, and we’ve had almost a 90% success rate in the platforms; you know, the account no longer appears, so that’s—that’s a good response by them, but it—it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of investment, it takes a lot of attention.

It’s not perfect, no, you know, but it is a responsibility of the sport to show up in this way. We also have a program called, um, called Bodyguard that we make available to all the players, and Bodyguard, you know, is an AI-enabled program that basically scrubs what they ultimately see.”

Using the Threat Matrix, the WTA has been able to put a quantitative outlook on the social media abuse faced by players, although the numbers are disturbing. Using AI-backed capabilities, the Matrix scanned 1.6 million messages in 2024, identifying over 8,000 as serious abuse. The stats highlighted the small number of accounts responsible for the total abuse, as 97 flagged accounts contributed 23 percent of the total abuse, while only five players bore the brunt, accounting for 26 percent of the total abusive messages.

Camillo is right to point out the Bodyguard program’s efficacy as well, which is more individualized than the centralized approach of the Threat Matrix. The program made its first foray into the tennis world at the 2023 French Open, where players used the AI service on their individual social media accounts across platforms like X, Instagram, and TikTok. The program used set language patterns to identify problematic and abusive messages and filter them out before they reached the player in question.

Gambling and social media abuse have been correlated in tennis for quite some time now, with sports bettors making up for almost 40 percent of the abusive messages received by players. Top-ranked players like Jessica Pegula or even Coco Gauff have publicly spoken out about it, asking for betting companies to take stricter action against the dubious actors.

Despite all the measures in place, Coco Gauff’s case at the China Open shows there is still a lot of work to be done. Even the World No. 1 Elena Rybakina deactivated her Instagram account this year due to the abuse she received after one of her losses during the grass-court season. Former World No. 1 Iga Swiatek has often emphasized the importance of staying away from social media, in order to keep one’s distance from the abuse.

That’s the same advice Andy Roddick gave Coco Gauff as well, as the American legend suggested a third-party solution or complete distancing from social media for the 22-year-old.

Andy Roddick Advised Coco Gauff to Distance Herself From Social Media

After her match against Xinran Sun at the China Open, Gauff’s social media accounts were targeted by trolls, who sent vile messages to the two-time Grand Slam champion. The American herself admitted the psychological toll it took and that keeping her social media off was the best avenue for her. The same was reiterated by Andy Roddick.

“Right. If it’s you, you have to choose not to do it,” said Roddick on his podcast. “I mean, Techie Sean and I were talking about this before we came on air, and it’s like, how do you have a relationship with it if it goes that far and it affects you that much? You have to create boundaries. Mhm. Like, and you know, you do have to choose to pick it up, and it’s not fair to say she shouldn’t do that because of who she is and what she does.”

Commercial obligations make it tougher for someone like Gauff to stay completely away from social media, but the American could follow Roddick’s other suggestion and hire a PR firm or a social media manager to handle her accounts, a practice accepted by almost all top players.