Tennis player shares threats sent to personal phone, WTA Tour says no breach of private data

A women’s tennis player has criticized the WTA Tour’s response to threats of violence sent to her personal phone. Panna Udvardy, the world No. 95, is the second WTA Tour player to discuss such threats in the past week, which the tour has told players are not the result of a personal data breach.

Udvardy, 27, received a message from a phone number with a United Kingdom country code, instructing her to lose a match at a tournament one rung below the main tour.

The message, sent ahead of her meeting with Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina in Antalya, Turkey, included a threat to kidnap her mother, as well as saying that the person responsible for the message had details of where her parents and grandmother live.

The message was accompanied by photos of Udvardy’s family, as well as a photo of a hand gun and the threat that “we have two groups near Hungary ready for war if necessary.”

“At midnight I’m panicking, I’m alone in the hotel. I was really scared, so I forwarded these messages to my parents,” Udvardy said via voice message.

“I forwarded it also to the supervisor and the WTA player relations team. I wrote an email to the social media team at the WTA. I could not sleep for two hours.”

Udvardy said that when she went to the WTA tournament supervisor’s office, she was told that she was not the first player to receive these kinds of messages.

She said that the supervisor told her that there was an investigation into a possible leak of players’ personal data, which, the supervisor said, explained the recent prevalence of messages sent to players’ personal phones.

“The WTA tried to downplay the situation a little bit. I didn’t see any extra security being placed or any kind of real concern,” Udvardy said.

“The supervisor told me, ‘Oh, it happened to other players, so don’t worry.’

“OK, but I am worried — it’s my phone number, my personal data, who knows what else they have?”

Udvardy said that the tour’s safeguarding team had also told her that the gun photo was an old one, which implied that the person sending the message did not actually a possess a firearm.

“I don’t see how that’s better,” she said.

A source briefed on the Antalya tournament’s operations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said that the supervisor’s comment to Udvardy did not constitute an official statement and was made off the cuff.

In an email sent to players following Udvardy’s reporting of the threats against her which has been reviewed by The Athletic, the organization said that there had not been an official WTA data breach, and said that the FBI is contributing to an investigation into the provenance of the threatening messages.

It also instructed players to immediately contact the tour’s safeguarding team in the event of receiving threatening messages, whether on personal phones or social media.

The FBI has previously been involved in investigations of threatening messages. In a 2024 season-wide report into abuse of players commissioned by the WTA Tour and World Tennis, 15 cases were reported to law enforcement, and three of them to the FBI.

The tour uses Signify Group’s Threat Matrix service, which is designed to help protect players on social media by detecting and filtering out abusive messages through a combination of AI and human analysts.

Italian women’s player Lucrezia Stefanini said that she received similar threats, including a photo of a gun, ahead of a first-round loss in qualifying for the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. Multiple ATP Tour players have also said that they have received direct threats in recent weeks.

“I immediately alerted the WTA, which provided me with more security … The entire tournament mobilized to make me feel safe,” Stefanini said in a video message posted to social media.

 

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A post shared by Lucrezia Stefanini (@lucrezia_stefanini)

Udvardy ultimately lost her match, in two tight sets, saying that she was proud of herself for creating chances to win during such a stressful situation. After it, she said, “The supervisor, the tournament director, and three police officers came up to me.

“They said that the Hungarian consulate sent them, because my parents wrote an email to the Hungarian embassy informing them about this, and they wanted to make sure everyone was safe.”

“They sent out people to watch my match and to watch me … They also offered me a security person at all times while I’m still here in Antalya.”

Tennis players on both tours have become accustomed to receiving abuse and harassment on social media, most prevalently from bettors who have lost money on their matches. Former WTA Tour Finals champion Caroline Garcia, who retired from tennis in 2025, said she rejected a $270,000 betting sponsorship for the player podcast that she hosts as a result of her experiences with bettor abuse during her career.

The WTA and ATP tours both have data partnerships with organizations that serve sports books and betting companies, most commonly by transmitting match data. Stats Perform in 2023 extended its partnership with the women’s tour to 2030.

“They’re always on Instagram, usually fake profiles, you can see it’s a very emotional response,” Udvardy said of abuse she has received on social media. “They lost their money and they’re just trying to hurt you in that way, by calling you names.”

She then described the additional fear and stress caused by receiving such messages in private, adding that this was the first time she had received a threat on her personal phone.

“Are we waiting for something to happen to put more safety measures for the players, or worry? I don’t think this should be the case,” she said.

“This should not be normalized.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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