After Novak Djokovic was disqualified from the US Open on Sunday after he inadvertently struck a line judge on the throat with a tennis ball, fans of the world number one took to social media to abuse and send hate messages to the judge.
Laura Clark, who was struck by the tennis ball, was at the receiving end of a barrage of vile messages on Instagram from Djokovic’s abusive supporters after a Serbian tabloid revealed the details of her social media handle.
Several fans of the world number one accused her of pretending to be hurt by the tennis ball just to get Djokovic disqualified. However, many trolls turned abusive to target Clark and sent her death threats.
Under a post dedicated to Clark’s late son, a troll wrote, “Don’t worry, you’ll join him soon.” Her son Josh passed away in 2008 in a motorcycle accident.
Djokovic’s abusive fans have commented on almost every picture of Clark’s on her Instagram account, calling her “sick” and an “alcoholic” for drinking wine and promoting a wine company.
“You can drink litres of alcohol but cannot survive small tennis ball?? Bad acting. Shameless,” another abusive user wrote.
Djokovic, who left without doing the obligatory media conference, posted an apology on Instagram, saying the situation left him “really sad and empty”.
“I’m extremely sorry to have caused her such stress. So unintended. So wrong,” he wrote. He was fined USD 10,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct in addition to the USD 250,000 in prize money for reaching the last 16.
