For girls athletes, even the courtroom feels unsafe. On the Dubai Tennis Championships on Feb. 18, skilled tennis participant Emma Raducanu was seen wiping away tears after recognizing her stalker within the stands. The person was finally ejected and given a restraining order as a result of what Dubai police referred to as “fixated behavior.” However why is 22-year-old Raducanu having to take care of her second stalker in three years? “That man was assessing the state of affairs and searching for the very best second to get nearer to her,” said Raducanu’s former coach Roman Kelecic. “He had a method that was terrifying.”
For girls athletes, stalking and harassment isn’t new (and never unusual). In 2022, a wholly totally different man obtained a five-year restraining order after walking 23 miles to Raducanu’s dwelling. Equally, in 2011, a person was caught outdoors the gates of Serena Williams’s property and charged with stalking. In a January TikTok, Olympian Gabby Thomas additionally spoke a few group of males following and harassing her in airports throughout the nation. Within the feedback, fellow athletes Simone Biles, Coco Gauff, and Suni Lee all recalled related situations.
On a broader scale, in response to an October 2024 study from the NCAA, women basketball players obtain thrice extra threats than males gamers. Likewise, on the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, a study from World Athletics discovered that ladies athletes had been the goal of 87 p.c of all on-line abuse. It’s clear that ladies athletes proceed to expertise a disproportionate quantity of harassment. So why haven’t we found out what to do about it?
“Ladies basketball gamers obtain thrice extra threats than males gamers.”
Possibly it’s as a result of individuals aren’t satisfied these threats will manifest as precise violence. To that, we are saying, look to Monica Seles: the previous skilled tennis participant who was stabbed in the back throughout a tennis match in April 1993. In line with the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC), stalking victims additionally expertise considerably increased charges of despair, anxiousness, insomnia, and social dysfunction. Forty-six p.c of victims consider it would by no means get higher, and 67 percent worry being killed or bodily harmed.
Nonetheless, there’s some hope amid all of the information. Raducanu is set to return to the Indian Wells Open in March, and the Ladies’s Tennis Affiliation (WTA) is alleged to be “actively working with Emma and her workforce” to offer ample safety, per the Guardian. Britain’s governing board of tennis – generally known as the Garden Tennis Affiliation (LTA) – has additionally promised to offer “intensive” safety preparations for upcoming matches within the UK. “This incident as soon as once more highlights points round security that every one gamers, however feminine gamers specifically, can face,” the LTA said. “Now we have intensive safety preparations at our occasions in Britain and maintain these beneath fixed evaluate.”
We can’t sit and anticipate threats and harassment to escalate into bodily violence. The vitriol ladies athletes face is already taking a toll on their mental health . . . and evidently it’s not one thing they’ll escape on the courtroom. Additional safety measures are an excellent begin, however we have to begin taking threats, stalking, and harassment significantly earlier than it escalates. The underside line? Ladies athletes deserve secure areas – it’s excessive time we ship.
Chandler Plante (she/her) is an assistant well being and health editor for PS. She has over 4 years {of professional} journalism expertise, beforehand working as an editorial assistant for Folks journal and contributing to Ladygunn, Millie, and Bustle Digital Group.
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