Iga Swiatek was threatened and harassed during a practice before her third-round match at the Miami Open \u2013 calling in extra security for the rest of the event.<\/p>\n
The world No 1 was practising at the Miami Open before her match against Elise Mertens when the man started his tirade of abuse.<\/p>\n
In the video, released online, the individual can be heard shouting towards Swiatek<\/a>: \u201cHey Iga, call your mother. Iga, when are you going to make up with your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDaria runs with water, like a trained dog.\u201d said the man, referring to the Pole\u2019s psychologist, Daria Abramowicz.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Miami incident appears to be a direct transition from verbal aggression online to harassment in the real world,\u201d Swiatek\u2019s spokesperson said to BBC Sport after the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was aggressive and taunting.\u201d<\/p>\n The world No 1\u2019s PR manager went on to state: \u201cWe monitor the network for these types of cases. Constructive criticism is one thing, threats, hate speech, or even team disruption are another: this cannot be allowed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe reported the matter to the tournament organizer as well as the WTA, who responded immediately and took additional precautions, such as increased security, for which we are very grateful.<\/p>\n \u201cEnsuring the safety of the athletes is the most important thing; they are at the centre of the action, and our job is simply to protect them.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the prestigious tournament also commented: \u201cWe take the safety and security of all players and tournament attendees extremely seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cWe constantly evaluate any potential threats and take every measure to respond appropriately. To ensure the effectiveness of these efforts, we do not disclose the details of our security operations\u201d.<\/p>\n Emma Raducanu makes interesting schedule decision as she signs up for WTA 250 event<\/a><\/p>\n Novak Djokovic may not take to court for next match as opponent describes \u2018painful\u2019 injury<\/a><\/p>\n The incident comes just weeks after an individual was removed from the stands during one of Emma Raducanu\u2019s matches in Dubai for displaying \u2018fixated behaviour.<\/p>\n Raducanu, earlier in March, went on to admit: \u2018I was distraught. I was thinking, I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to finish. I literally couldn\u2019t see the ball through the tears.<\/p>\n \u201cI could barely breathe. I was playing Karolina, who\u2019s top 17 in the world, and I can\u2019t see the ball. And I\u2019m like, I need to take a breather here. The first four games ran away from me because I was just not on the court. It was a pretty good effort for me to carry on playing.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the match, I completely broke down in tears. There was just so much emotion. I needed a week off to take a breather. I feel a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result of the horrific ordeal, the man accepted a restraining order from the former US Open<\/a> champion and was subsequently banned from all future WTA tournaments.<\/p>\n The Brit also opted for extra security, to help minimise future risk: \u201cSince that incident I have definitely got increased attention and greater security. All we can do is look at what happened and react to it in a better way, in a more positive way, rather than looking back and blaming the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Iga Swiatek harassed by \u2018aggressive and taunting\u2019 man during Miami practice session<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iga Swiatek was threatened and harassed during a practice before her third-round match at the Miami Open \u2013 calling in extra security for the rest of the event. The world No 1 was practising at the Miami Open before her match against Elise Mertens when the man started his tirade of abuse. In the video, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Latest Tennis News<\/h3>\n