Tennis players to get protection from online abuse through new monitoring service

LONDON (AP) — A new monitoring service will help protect tennis players from online abuse and threats, the International Tennis Federation and other governing bodies said Wednesday.

In their joint announcement, ITF, U.S. Tennis Association, the All England Club and the women's WTA tour said the "Threat Matrix" service will operate in 35 languages when it launches Jan. 1.

"Tennis players are subject to significant levels of social media abuse and other inappropriate online contact, which poses risks to preparation, performance and mental health," the statement read. "The Threat Matrix service will support the identification of abusers, against whom all available measures will be taken."

Threat Matrix is "a specialist service developed by AI company Signify Group."

The new service "will monitor players' public-facing social media for abusive and threatening content" on X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.

"Tennis must be a sport in which players can compete to the best of their ability, free from any form of harassment," said David Haggerty, president of the International Tennis Federation.

The men's ATP tour and organizers of the Australian Open and French Open were not part of Wednesday's announcement.