Matteo Berrettini said at a US Open press conference that his family was threatened during Roland Garros after messages were sent to his brother in Paris demanding that he throw a match.
He said the messages warned that if he did not lose, the sender would kill his family. Berrettini also said the texts included language along the lines of, “Matteo is so bad that if you don’t tell him to lose, we will kill your family.”
According to the report, his brother passed the messages to the ATP and the family made a formal complaint. Berrettini said the people behind the threats had phone numbers and evidence existed.
He used the episode to argue for stronger protection for players, especially younger ones and women, saying there was a gap in the ATP’s safeguarding protocols and that tennis needed a more robust system to protect players from threats linked to betting and match-fixing. He said he and his family were adults, but feared for younger players who might receive the same sort of messages.
The report also framed the episode as part of a wider problem of betting-related pressure in professional tennis, and said such corruption was especially prevalent at Challenger level and had surged in recent years.
A separate WTA and ITF report said angry gamblers accounted for 40% of detected abuse in 2024, and that 458 players were targeted with direct abuse or threats.
