Emma Raducanu’s second match of the Dubai Tennis Championships took a distressing turn as media footage captured the moment she broke down in tears, urgently approaching the umpire before retreating behind the chair. The image spoke volumes before a single word was said. In an interview with Sky Sports, Raducanu’s coach spoke: “Emma loses the first game and runs to us, crying, shouting ‘here he is! here he is!’.”
The ‘he’ in question had approached Raducanu outside of the tournament, her coach stating that he had even “followed her to Singapore, to Abu Dhabi…again in Doha, now in Dubai”. This pattern of behaviour raised significant security concerns, with the man deliberately approaching her whilst she was alone. Fortunately, security escorted the man out of the venue, and Raducanu later dropped the charges against him. However, this incident underscores a troubling issue: the persistent lack of security measures for professional athletes, particularly female players.
A disturbing pattern
This is not the first time Raducanu has faced such a situation. In 2021, following her historic US Open victory, she became the target of a stalker who fixated on her to a disturbing degree. Amrit Magar walked twenty three miles from his home in Harrow to Raducanu’s family home, loitering outside the house on three separate occasions and even stealing items from the porch, believing them to belong to the tennis star.
Found guilty of stalking, Magar was sentenced to 18 months of community service and issued a five-year restoring order, yet the psychological toll on Raducanu was far more lasting. She said in an interview: “Because of this I feel like my freedom has been taken away from me. I am constantly looking over my shoulder. I feel on edge and worried this could happen again. I don’t feel safe in my own home, which is where I should feel safest”.
“He was obsessed with young female athletes…”
Raducanu’s experience is unfortunately not an isolated case. Sabrina Sinha, a British middle-distance runner, has also spoken out about her horrifying reality of being stalked. After winning silver at the 2016 European Youth Championships and multiple titles at the Youth London Games, Sinha started a personal blog where she wrote about her racing experiences. It was this blog that lead to her cyber-stalking torment.
“I was passing through security at the airport when an email flashed up on my phone”, Sinha recalled. “I didn’t recognise the address but I was horrified at what I read. A man said he wanted to pleasure himself with my body, rape and kill me…some of them were about my friends, which made it even more personal and terrifying”. Her parents contacted the police immediately, yet the international nature of cyberstalking meant the FBI became involved. “That summer was hell for me and my family…My parents installed security cameras on our house, and I was not allowed to go out running on my own. I stopped tracking my runs on Strava and carried a rape alarm with me'”.
The man was arrested in October 2017, four months after she received the first threatening email. She later learned that the individual had a criminal history, previously being convicted of sexual assault in 1993 and indecent exposure in 2004. In January 2019, he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for cyberstalking multiple women. “He was fixated on young female athletes, often photoshopping their images into inappropriate contexts and sending these altered photos to their friends and families,” Sinha explained.
Sinha’s terrifying ordeal highlights the dangers that female athletes face, simply for being in the public eye. It’s important to understand the devastating impacts stalking can have on a person, with Sinha feeling like all her personal agency was taken away from her: “whenever I move house I put a security ring around where I live. When I go out, I make sure I know the fastest route home. I do not post much on social media now and I am careful with how much information I share on Strava”.
More and more cases have been reported. Olympian Emily Infield shared her story in 2021, revealing how she received a “barrage of Facebook messages” which then escalated into an email with “wedding preparations” detailed for the following week and an influx of parcels arriving at her house from her stalker. These cases are becoming increasingly common, illustrating a disturbing pattern of invasive behaviour that threatens the well-being of athletes and further underscores the urgent need for stronger protections.
The call for change
These incidents raise a critical and urgent question: what more must be done to ensure the safety of athletes? Athletes dedicate their lives to sport, yet their safety often seems like an afterthought. Yes, they have ‘obligations’ to their fans – engaging with them, posing for photos, offering a smile, but what does this mean when their personal safety is at risk?
An athlete’s safety should never be jeopardised simply because they are public figures, regardless of their level of fame. These incidents, amongst a sea of other stalking accusations, underscore a glaring need for stronger protective measures in the world of sport. This issue is especially pressing in an era marked by the vicious spread of online hatred and the use of photoshop and deepfake technology that enable the creation of harmful imagery, increasingly used to harass and threaten individuals.
Security at tournaments, like the Dubai Tennis Championships, needs to be proactive rather than reactive. Portia Archer, the CEO of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), told BBC Sport that: “[she] wouldn’t call [Raducanu’s situation] a security failure. As soon as we became aware of the threat we acted immediately”. Despite this ‘immediate’ action, security must be proactive in situations like this to avoid the emotional distress on athletes. It is not enough to simply react to a distressing situation.
More needs to be done to ensure that sports venues, travel hubs, and online spaces provide the security that athletes deserve. From increased security personnel at tournaments to improved cyber-protection measures, it is imperative that sports organisations and law enforcement collaborate to create a safer environment.
The WTA has made some improvements to their security. In 2023, they teamed up with three other tennis governing bodies to increase player protection against online abuse. They introduced a system, called the Threat Matrix, to monitor player’s public facing social media accounts for abuse and threatening comments. The WTA commented: “This development reflects the commitment of the international tennis bodies involved to protect and support athletes from the mental trauma and potential real-world threat of online harassment and abuse”.
Emma Raducanu’s distressing experience is a stark reminder of how vulnerable athletes can be. Unless meaningful changes are made, the issue will persist — placing not only careers but lives at risk. It is unacceptable that athletes, particularly female athletes, are subjected to this behaviour, putting their safety in jeopardy.
