Swiatek calls for more tools to help players combat online abuse

Five-times Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek on Thursday called for the sport's governing bodies to provide players with more tools to combat online abuse after Caroline Garcia spoke about the hate she received on the internet.

On Wednesday, Frenchwoman Garcia said she received online abuse after her first-round loss at the U.S. Open and blamed "unhealthy betting" as one of the main reasons players are targeted on social media.

The ITF, WTA, AELTC and USTA in December launched a monitoring service named Threat Matrix, which uses a combination of artificial intelligence and open-source data, to help protect their athletes.

The French Open has also made AI-powered software available for players, which is designed to block online harassment and hate speech.

"It would be nice if we can do more as (Garcia) did and try to educate people. Also maybe in the future, have some solutions such as using AI to make it safer for us," Swiatek told reporters after her victory over Ena Shibahara.

"I feel like we can't be on the internet and feel safe anymore. You have to really be careful on what you're reading, who you're following. I know that there are some tools that, for example, Roland Garros offered for us.

"This app that we can have on the phone, and it's going to block the hateful messages. It's also going to learn with you when you're going to tag some messages as hateful or comments, you know... It would be nice if we had more opportunities to use these kind of tools."

Men's world number one Jannik Sinner, who has been under intense scrutiny at the U.S. Open over a doping case even though he was cleared of wrongdoing, said receiving hateful messages was part of being an athlete.

"I'm not so much on socials, especially in the last