Oct 22 (Reuters) - Social media abuse was directed at over 85% of men's tennis players attracting engagement online in the past year, with the ATP blocking some 234,000 comments from reaching them or fans, the governing body said on Thursday.
The ATP based the findings on an analysis of more than 3.7 million comments across ATP and player social media channels by its Safe Sport initiative, which uses AI-enabled moderation and specialist threat assessment.
It said more than 284,000 abusive comments
were identified, and over 82% of them were removed in real time. During its first year, the programme identified and hid upwards of 162,000 comments containing "severe" abuse.
"Player welfare sits at the heart of the ATP's safeguarding work," said Andrew Azzopardi, the ATP director of safeguarding.
"Preventing more than 234,000 abusive comments from reaching players and fans demonstrates the tangible impact the programme is having every day. Online abuse has no place in tennis.
"We will keep investing in the technology, expertise and partnerships that protect players, and we will continue working with the authorities to hold those responsible to account."
ANONYMOUS ABUSERS
Tennis players, like many athletes, often have to deal with the wrath of anonymous abusers online, many of whom are bettors, with French player Gael Monfils humorously hitting back at some of them following an early defeat in Stuttgart last year.
Monfils, 40, said at the time he was surprised people still put money on him to win against much younger opponents.
Online abuse is not confined to angry gamblers, with American Coco Gauff saying earlier this month she received an "insane" amount of racist abuse at the China Open, prompting condemnation from the United Nations Human Rights Office.
World Tennis, the WTA, the All England Club and the United States Tennis Association have launched monitoring services that use a combination of artificial intelligence and open-source data to help protect players.
The French Open has also made AI-powered software available for players to block online harassment and hate speech.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
