Rune’s sister Aneke recently took to Instagram to address threats the family had received, explaining that they had previously involved the police and would continue to do so. Their mother has now addressed the worrying messages, revealing that the four-time title winner was still getting death threats from faceless accounts.
“I read a lot of analysis about the social media. We cannot get rid of it because it’s part of the interaction for young people, which is good,” Aneke told the ATP Tennis Radio Podcast. “It’s a way for the fans to interact with their idols, which is super good. The bad thing about social media is, there are so many fake accounts that write s***.”
Rune’s mum and agent explained that she didn’t mind seeing her son receive constructive criticism from a real person but her issue came when people created fake accounts to send threats. She continued: “If it was like an honest profile saying, ‘I dislike what you do,’ then it’s fair.
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“But, in nine out of 10, it’s like fake profiles that go write whatever they like. And it’s a really nasty thing – it can be death threats, it can be a lot of bad things they write. Normally we block all this, so he doesn’t have to see it, and the rest of them, we go to the policemen – there are some serious threats once in a while, and they are quite serious about it, they follow it through.”
While Rune’s family had been taking matters into their own hands, Aneke still wanted to see the ATP step up when it came to comments being left on social media profiles run by the men’s tennis tour. “It should be possible to make someone responsible,” she explained.
“If ATP runs an Instagram site, they should be able to block whatever is hate. Hate is not part of the serious debate. I think the one who runs the site has an obligation to block these ones out.”
