John Millman: Death threats are indeed an everyday occurrence in the tennis world

Tennis - Australian tennis player John Millman has come to the support of AFL rugby team player Callan Ward, after the latter said he received several death threats on social media after a recent football match

Australia's John Millman says death threats are a regular occurrence in the tennis world

AFL rugby team player Callan Ward, who plays for the Greater Western Sydney Giants team, recently played a game against Essendon and scored late for his team, leading them to a win. After the match, Ward said he received several death threats on social media and even comments on his young child. 

Ward wanted to highlight the issue and said, "It’s just got to stop. If you’re getting death threats like I’ve been getting, there are some players that can’t handle that."

Millman also posted a tweet on this issue, saying “Death threats are indeed an everyday occurrence in the tennis world."

While responding to some of the comments he made, Millman also said he plans to play the US Open and will fly to New York after a few days. The US Open is scheduled to be held in New York in late August. Some of the other Australian players like Ash Barty and Nick Kyrgios have decided to skip the US Open this year due to concerns about travel during the current pandemic.

Death threats are indeed an everyday occurence in the tennis world. https://t.co/Xpqs7uwcS7

— John Millman (@johnhmillman) August 8, 2020

The Australian had also spoken about the issue in 2018 , saying he received a lot of hate messages after one of his matches against Novak Djokovic.

Several other tennis players have also spoken about the impact of online criticism and bullying from fans.

American tennis player Madison Keys has started an initiative called Kindness Wins which she hopes will help overcome the negativity found in everyday lives and on social media. Speaking to Forbes magazine, Keys says, "The thing for me is you never really know what people are going through. Kindness doesn’t have to be something super big. It can be the smallest thing, something super thoughtful. If we start trying to highlight that, it can help overtake the negativity we see in our day-to-day lives.” 

31 year old John Millman is currently ranked No. 43 in the world rankings. He has been as high as No. 33 in the world in October 2018.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/3gMT3yA