Holger Rune's mother Aneke recently addressed the extent of the social media abuse that she and her son have had to endure, before calling on the ATP to do something about hateful comments from trolls online.

The World No. 6 has only won one match since he made it to the quarter-finals of Wimbledon in July. Most recently, he attempted to defend his title at the Stockholm Open, where he had defeated Novak Djokovic in the final twelve months ago. However, he ended up crashing out of this year's tournament in the opening round against Miomir Kecmanovic.

As a result of this, the 20-year-old has faced a lot of abuse from trolls on social media. In a recent episode of the ATP Tennis Radio Podcast, his mother and manager Aneke spoke out against fake profiles which spewed hatred at her son.

While Aneke admitted that some negative comments could be constructive and that social media was important for young people, she also detailed the extent of the hate that had been directed toward her family.

"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.

"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 sh*t," she said.

"If it was like an honest profile saying, ‘I dislike what you do,’ then it’s fair. 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," she continued.

She then called on the ATP to take more effective action to rid the online tennis community of such accounts.

"It should be possible to make someone responsible. 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," she added.