Jack Draper says a tennis player is “a horrible person” in a bettor’s eye whether he wins or loses as there is always someone unhappy about the outcome of the match.
Since tennis has an 11-month season and there matches pretty much 24/7, it became very attractive to gamblers. And since everyone has social media accounts nowadays, it left players exposed to some social media abuse. Usually, angry bettors wish players to get cancer – send death threats – or insult in other pretty disgusting ways.
Draper, who is 22 years old and turned pro in 2018, says his first experience with one of those people came right after his pro debut.
“My first pro match in 2018, I think I won love and love [6-0, 6-0], and I was a horrible person – they were going to find my mum. It’s every match, whether you win or lose, you get hundreds of messages from people and you can’t really stop it. If I lose a match these days, just go on my latest Instagram account – you’ll probably see about 100 messages with clown emojis and snakes and all this sort of stuff. You can’t control it. Everyone has it, and especially the girls. The girls get it way worse than the guys,” the world No. 15 told The Guardian.
Jack Draper© Jack Draper/Instagram – Fair Use
Draper was in a very uncomfortable spot in August but not because of angry bettors
In mid-August, the top-ranked British tennis player found himself on the receiving end of some harsh criticism and backlash.
Serving for the match against Felix Auger-Aliassime in their Cincinnati Masters round-of-16 match and having a match point, the 22-year-old went for a serve volley. But before the ball hit the net and bounced on the Canadian’s side, the ball appeared to hit the Briton’s racket and land on the court.
However, the chair umpire remained silent and Draper was called the winner. As Auger-Aliassime was pleading his case, the world No. 15 insisted he didn’t know if it touched his racket and hit his side of the court.
Later after it was confirmed that the Canadian was right, Draper faced major backlash and admitted that those couple of days weren’t easy for him at all.
Tennis World USA