Holger Rune's mother warned people against sending death threats to her son after he got one following the loss to Casper Ruud at the 2024 Mexican Open in Acapulco.
Abuse is, unfortunately, nothing new in tennis because tennis players are basically subjected to online abuse every day. It's particularly worse after they lose because most of that hate is fueled by people who bet money on their wins and ultimately lose.
Rune's most recent loss came at the Mexican Open in Acapulco, where he was beaten by Casper Ruud in the semi-final of the ATP 500 competition.
That ticked somebody off and they unloaded on Rune basically sending a pretty explicit death threat. Besides a bunch of swear words and direct insults, the person also claimed to give the young Dane "a lesson" and stated they were "coming for him."
The message sent to Rune was simply disgusted, and his mother, Aneke, just had to share it online to show what tennis player have to deal with on day-to-day basis.
His mother Aneke Rune reacted to the death threat that her son received on social media by posting a screenshot of the message as well as publicly revealing the e-mail from which the message was sent.
She then had a message for the person, warning them that sending death threats was illegal, suggesting that the Dane and his team may push for legal actions.
"If anyone know this idiot do tell him that it's illegal to do death threats."
Although some may think an online death threat may be silly, famous people and athletes can never be careful enough especially after we saw what hapepend with Monika Seles many years ago.
Incidents like that almost never happen, but some of the abuse tennis players deal with daily is truly disturbing. It's too much and definitely needs to stop, but it won't unless law enforcement gets involved.