A recent study showed that Japanese superstar Naomi Osaka was the recipient of the most abusive tweets over the past 12 months, while Novak Djokovic came in second after his deportation from Australia.
The betting website Pickswise conducted a study with data collected from January 2021 to December 2021, which monitored tweets aimed at tennis players that contained the use of words, phrases and tags that were recognized as abusive.
A total of approximately 100,000 tweets were collected, collated and analyzed. Pickswise aimed to highlight the levels of online abuse directed at tennis players in an attempt to get social media companies to combat online trolls and abuse.
Four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka topped the list with a total of 32,415 abusive tweets directed at her. This comes after she announced she wouldn’t participate in French Open press conferences, before completely withdrawing from both the French Open and Wimbledon, Osaka later revealed that she had been suffering periods of depression and anxiety.
All of the top five received more than 10,000 abusive tweets. Serena Williams, Andy Murray Emma Raducanu and Novak Djokovic form the rest of the top five. Whilst outside of the initial date range, 20-time Slam champion Djokovic received an additional 7,354 abusive tweets following his deportation and anti-vaccination stance. With these figures included, Djokovic would move up to second on the list.
Below is a list of the players who make up the Top 20.
1. Naomi Osaka 32, 415 tweets
2. Serena Williams 18,118 tweets
3. Andy Murray 11,732 tweets
4. Emma Raducanu 10,094 tweets
5. Novak Djokovic 8,439 tweets *15,793 after Australian Open debacle
6. Roger Federer 4,261 tweets
7. Stefanos Tsitsipas 4,084 tweets
8. Rafael Nadal 3,588 tweets
9. Alexander Zverev 3,454 tweets
10. Simona Halep 3,181 tweets
11. Nick Kyrgios 3,064 tweets
12. Daniil Medvedev 2,726 tweets
13. Ashleigh Barty 2,596 tweets
14. Genie Bouchard 1,716 tweets
15. Maria Sharapova 1,553 tweets
16. Sloane Stephens 1,549 tweets
17. Venus Williams 1,446 tweets
18. Dominic Thiem 1,381 tweets
19. Andrey Rublev 1,151 tweets
20. Sania Mirza 1,010 tweets