It’s Pathetic! ‘Priscilla Hon: British Tennis Star Shares Vile Online Abuse After Losing To opponent Ranked 80-Spots High’ Aussie tennis player Priscilla Hon is just 24 years old, and yet she has been copping vile online abuse for nearly 10 years from punters who have lost their money on her matches.
She joined the ITF senior tour in 2015, having already travelled the circuit as a prodigious junior prior, so she has been in the public eye – and the bookmakers’ systems – since she was 15.
Priscilla Hon: British Tennis Star Shares Vile Online Abuse After Losing To opponent Ranked 80-Spots High
She posted a series of abhorrent and jarring screenshots of messages she has received from angry spectators, and presumably punters, of her matches, alongside a fed-up message.
“Just spoke to SBS about all the hate us tennis players get every single week,” she wrote.
“I think I’d be speaking for most of us by saying we’re quite (immune) to it, but that doesn’t make it OK. It’s sad that humanity goes down to this level just for losing a bet on a tennis match.”
Speaking to Sunrise on Wednesday morning, Hon explained the sad reality of how she was already used to it.
“It actually started happening to me when I was probably 14 or 15. So, it’s been almost 10 years of getting these messages,” she said.
Four-time grand slam champion and former world No.1, Naomi Osaka – who is just a few months older than Hon – famously withdrew from press conferences and then tournaments, including the 2021 French Open, because of the toll it was taking on her mental health.
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“Obviously Naomi, she would I get, I don’t know how many millions of them, and I’m sure I’ve had thousands and thousands,” Hon told Sunrise.
And Hon says regardless of the result of the match, she and other tennis players will still receive abusive messages – which they do see.
“For me, I just delete them,” Hone said.
“Every single match, I go on (my phone) after (a match), I can win or lose, and I’ll still get messages and comments because they can bet against me that I was going to lose, and I won, so you can’t really win either way.
“When I get off court, I go on my Instagram and delete all the comments or the messages and just try not to look at all of them.”
There is a function on Instagram which is designed to block such abusive messages, which Hon has turned on, but she says it makes little difference.
“I’ve actually turned that on, except it blocks maybe three of them and then all of them are still there,” she said.
“I’m not sure how it can be stopped because people make different Instagram accounts all the time; one gets closed, and they can just make another.
“I think the only way for me here is I guess to raise some awareness for the issue.”
The current world No.223 has a singles career win rate of 56.3 per cent to go with her four titles and a career-high ranking of 113.
On the doubles circuit, Hon has won 10 titles and has a career-high ranking of 91.
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“I’d be speaking for most of us by saying we’re quite prone to it,” the 24-year-old said. Like Burrage, Hon said she wasn’t made to feel bad by the messages but reiterated how unacceptable they were, adding: “When I see them I don’t feel much, but that doesn’t make it okay. It’s sad that humanity goes down to this level just for losing a bet on a tennis match.”
And America’s Shelby Rogers – who was ranked at No 43 in the world when then-world No 150 and qualifier Emma Raducanu defeated her at the 2021 US Open en route to the title – said the abuse would be inevitable after losing to the Brit. “I’m going to have nine million death threats and whatnot. You could probably go through my profile right now, I’m probably a fat pig and words that I can’t say right now,” she admitted.
