“Tennis is fun until it isn’t”
German tennis star publishes hate messages
October 22, 2025 – 12:31 p.mReading time: 1 min.
In the round of 16 in Tokyo, Eva Lys suffered a significant defeat. But that’s not all: she once again became the victim of numerous hate messages.
After the clear round of 16 exit at the WTA tournament in Tokyo, Eva Lys once again made public what many tennis professionals have to deal with in everyday life – hate messages and insults on social networks.
In her Instagram story, the 23-year-old published some of the anonymous messages that had reached her after the 1: 6, 1: 6 against Canadian young talent Victoria Mboko. “Kill yourself, you piece of shit,” it says, alongside other death threats and sexist comments. The Hamburg native wrote: “Tennis is fun until it isn’t anymore.”
Lys, currently ranked 50th in the world, is repeatedly the victim of sexist comments, threats and insults. She has been making these hate messages public for a long time.
She sees the cause primarily in people who bet on tennis matches. “You get messages saying how much money they lost because of you, and they threaten you and tell you to transfer it back. They have no shame. They insult, it’s death threats. Sexism. Everything,” Lys said in the summer.
Alexander Zverev has also already commented on the topic. “For us tennis players, the abuse we are subjected to on a daily basis online and on social media is extreme,” he said. The public doesn’t even realize the extent of it, “because a lot of it happens via hidden messages, direct messages and the like.”