"Harassment and social media go together": Serena Williams' ex-coach Patrick Mouratoglou

Serena Williams's former coach Patrick Mouratoglou feels that while fan engagement is excellent for tennis, it becomes problematic when people get overly aggressive.

Quite a few tennis players have complained about harassment from online trolls, which often affects their mental health. Some of the players that have had the courage to speak out publicly are Naomi Osaka, Jelena Dokic, Sloane Stephens, Dustin Brown, Matteo Berrettini, Cristian Garin, and Joao Sousa.

French tennis coach Mouratoglou recently shared a video on social media and addressed the dire issue, saying he welcomed people sharing their opinions but it has to be done in a proper way.

"I think harassment and social media go together, in general," Mouratoglou said. "That's probably the way people communicate today as it's more and more difficult to express an opinion as who you are because there is one way of thinking and if you don't have the same way of thinking as the immense majority, you are a bad person."

"It affects tennis players, it affects all the people who are doing something as opposed to people who are not doing anything but criticizing," he added. "I think it's completely okay to have opinions and it's great. I never have a problem with people who express their opinions. Fans have opinions and it's great because they're engaged."

He also said that he felt sorry for those who abused others online.

"What is not fine is when people say what is supposed to be the truth based on nothing, in an aggressive way. I like this quote from Gary Vaynerchuk. He says he feels for those people who are harassing others on social media because how miserable are they to have nothing else to do than take a fake name and go on social media just to insult or harass people. So you should feel sorry for them," he concluded.

Apart from Williams, Mouratoglou has also worked with Holger Rune, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Coco Gauff, Simona Halep, and Grigor Dimitrov.

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Patrick Mouratoglou names WTA's Big 3

Patrick Mouratoglou

Patrick Mouratoglou recently took to social media to state that Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, and Elena Rybakina are the Big 3 of the WTA tour. The three players have already faced each other in the finals of the biggest tournaments on multiple occasions this year.

Swiatek and Sabalenka are the top-two players in the rankings while Rybakina is the No. 6. Mouratoglou pointed out that the Kazakh player did not earn 2,000 points despite winning the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, which is why she is behind the other two in the rankings.

"WTA has its big 3! Sabalenka, Swiatek, Rybakina. The third one doesn’t have the ranking just because her points from winning Wimbledon haven’t been displayed," Patrick Mouratoglou tweeted.

Sabalenka won the 2023 Madrid Open by defeating Swiatek in the final a few days after the Pole beat Sabalenka in the Stuttgart Open final.