Sexual abuse of young female players by older male coaches happens “right and left” on the WTA Tour and safeguarding against it must be a priority, Victoria Azarenka said at the US Open on Saturday.
Azarenka’s remarks to reporters came after Pierre Bouteyre, the former coach of French player Fiona Ferro, was on Thursday charged in France with raping and sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager between 2012 and 2015.
Bouteyre’s lawyer told Agence France-Presse that a relationship had occurred, but denied any coercion. The lawyer said the 50-year-old Bouteyre described the relationship as “a true love story.”
Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY
Azarenka, who sits on the eight-person WTA players’ council, said that combating abuse was the group’s top priority.
“We see those vulnerable young ladies that [are] getting taken advantage of in different situations,” she said.
“It’s really sad and really makes me emotional,” she said. “If I had a daughter, I would have a question would she want to play tennis, that would be a very big concern in that way for me.”
Photo: AFP
Former No. 1 Azarenka, who reached the tournament’s fourth round on Saturday, applauded Ferro for her bravery in speaking out.
Ferro, 25, won two WTA titles and reached as high as world No. 39 last year, but is currently ranked 259 and lost during tournament qualifiers last week.
“I hope this situation she’s gonna come out of it stronger and tennis is not ruined for her because of that,” Azarenka said.
She implored journalists at the news conference to do their part to expose abuse.
“Do the research, help people to open up more. Hopefully one by one try to eliminate those types of situations,” she said.
Czech Karolina Pliskova, another former world No. 1, was unsure if the women’s tennis body could be of much help, saying she felt it was the responsibility of parents to ensure that the abuse of players does not happen.
Current world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, 21, said she had never faced such a situation and was keeping the faith in the WTA.
“I hope that if something like that happens, we’re going to kind of be safe and have trust in WTA that they’re going to take care of this stuff properly,” the two-time French Open champion said. “I’m sure they’re doing that.”
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
RSS