The Hungarian, who was playing in a Challenger tournament in Antalya the night before the match, received a message on her phone.
“Read carefully, Panna. You have to lose tomorrow, otherwise we’ll hunt down your mother and grandmother.” This is how the message received by Panna Udvardy, the Hungarian world number 95, begins. This is another case of serious threats from gamblers to tennis players, following what happened to Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini a few days ago during the Indian Wells qualifiers. Like the Italian player, the Hungarian player also reported what had happened: she posted a screenshot of the conversation on her social media channels, along with a long post in which she went into detail about the incident.
The context was the Challenger tournament in Antalya, Turkey, where Udvardy was playing in the quarterfinals against Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina. The night before the match, the Hungarian received a series of threats on WhatsApp: “The (anonymous) person told me that if I didn’t lose the match, they would kidnap members of my family. They said they knew everything about my family: where they lived, their cars, their phone numbers. They even sent me photos of them and a gun,” she reported on social media. The screenshot of the message reads even worse: “We have two groups near the Hungarian border, ready to fight if necessary. We will not hesitate to send them to your mother’s house to kidnap her until she returns the money we lost because of your disobedience.”
the complaint— Udvardy decided to contact the WTA: “I did it immediately, sending screenshots of the message and also informing my parents. They contacted the consulate, and when I woke up this morning, I spoke to the WTA supervisor again. They told me that similar threats have already been received by other players and that they believe our personal information has been taken from the WTA databases: it is a case under investigation. The consulate immediately sent three police officers to my match, for which I am grateful. They also went straight to my parents and my grandmother, and at the end of the match I filed a police report here in Turkey.”
WTA investigation— For the record, the match ended 7-6, 7-5 in favor of Kalinina. Udvardy fought for over two hours but was unable to secure her place in the semifinals. She added on social media: “Let me be clear: this is not normal. Even though we are athletes or public figures, it is not acceptable to receive threats against our families, especially not on our private numbers or even accompanied by disturbing images. We cannot normalize abuse like this in sport. I hope the WTA continues to investigate this case seriously and takes more serious measures to protect our personal data. And if there is a cyber breach in their systems, I hope they notify us immediately. No one should have to deal with something like this.”
