Hungarian tennis player Panna Udvardy reported receiving “alarming” communications, one showing a firearm, which threatened her family with injury if she failed to intentionally lose a match.
The globally 95th-ranked Udvardy stated that an unidentified sender used WhatsApp to send these messages to her private mobile device on Thursday evening. These communications included photographs of her relatives and assertions that the sender was aware of her family’s address, the vehicles they own, and their contact information.
The tennis player, aged 27, disclosed that the Turkish consulate dispatched three law enforcement personnel to her quarter-final game at the WTA 125 event in Antalya on Friday. Concurrently, law enforcement agencies also provided security for the residences of her parents and grandmother.
Udvardy, who was the second seed in the competition, was defeated in the game by Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine, with a final score of 7-6 (7-3), 7-5.
Through a social media update posted on Instagram on Friday, Udvardy asserted that she had been informed of comparable intimidations directed at other athletes.
This incident follows a few days after Italian tennis professional Lucrezia Stefanini reported experiencing threats ahead of a qualification round for the Indian Wells tournament., external
It is apparent that the WTA is cognizant of multiple players who have encountered such issues and is currently probing the method by which athletes’ private details were acquired, given that the origin remains undisclosed.
