Destanee Aiava knew it was time to quit her professional tennis career when she began to fear stepping onto the court.
She was not afraid of her opponent, the match or the thousands of spectators around the world.
Aiava dreaded picking up her phone after the match.
“Win or lose, the death threats would come,” she tells Triple J Hack.
“They’re going to find me, kill my family, kill me,” she said of the messages.
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Aiava, 25, announced she was quitting tennis in an explosive social media post on Valentine’s Day, describing the sport as her “toxic boyfriend”.
She last played at the Australian Open, where she was eliminated alongside Maddison Inglis in the first round of the women’s doubles.
Like other professional athletes, Aiava claims she was targeted by members of the public who bet on her match.
“They were all players,” she said.
“Even if I won, I would still get a lot of messages saying they lost their house or something.
“There was a period last year where I was literally afraid to go on the field.”
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“I don’t want to do this.”
Aiava admits she felt like she wanted to quit tennis for a while.
“Two years ago, I started saying, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,'” she tells Hack.
She describes the response to her announcement of her departure from the sport as “50-50”, saying that while she received messages of support and congratulations, she also received a lot of hate.
“During my career, I received mostly negative comments,” Aiava tells triple j hack.
“Comments about my skin color or calling me a monkey… even the N-word.
“It’s a lot.”
Aiava tells Hack that she didn’t receive much support from other Australian tennis players and always felt like an “outsider”.
“A lot of Australian tennis players like to brag about how amazing the camaraderie is, but yeah, that’s not what I felt,” she says.
“I didn’t have any friends in tennis anyway.”
Grinding on tour
Aiava’s life has been dominated by tennis since childhood.
She competed in her first tournament at the age of seven, before turning professional at 15.
“It was just tennis, tennis, tennis,” she said.
“I was just kind of thrown into this and forced to deal with it.”
Destanee Aiava says she has witnessed a culture of racism, misogyny and homophobia in tennis. (Provided: Getty Images/Matthew Stockman)
She earned a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) career-high ranking of 147th.
But she points out that the sport is not as glamorous as many fans might believe.
“It wasn’t until I was maybe a teenager that I started to realize that, you know, maybe I wasn’t enjoying this sport as much as I should be,” Aiava says.
“We worked hard during the tour, just trying to improve my ranking.”
Aiava said that at one point she had less than $40 in her bank account and often waited weeks for the money to be disbursed to survive.
“It’s really hard,” she explains.
“I feel like that aspect of tennis isn’t really as publicized as much and it definitely should be – I feel like people who watch us and give us so much criticism… would have more empathy and think twice before commenting or messaging us.”
Racism is not getting better
Aiava says she witnessed a culture of racism, misogyny and homophobia in tennis, with hostility towards “anyone who didn’t fit the mould”.
“I developed an eating disorder… I starved myself,” she tells Hack.
“Most people who play this sport are a lot thinner…but Pacific Islanders are just built differently.
“Dealing with messages, losing most of your matches… it feels like things are piling up one after the other.
“I guess I should have taken a break…but I just tried to get through it.”
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Aiava says that despite the decades that have passed since players like Serena Williams began speaking out against racism in tennis, it remains a major problem.
“I don’t really think it’s gotten better, even though they advertise that they’re more inclusive,” she says.
“Seeing only white players and no one else who looked like me was really uncomfortable.
“Especially when I won…it automatically went back to, ‘She looks like a man.'”
It’s time to “do more”
Aiava says that while tennis federations have systems in place to combat negative comments on social media and promote inclusion, she believes there is still more to do.
“I think there needs to be some sort of consequence for players or people who send hate messages or death threats,” she says.
“I actually got a lot of messages from parents who said their kids were going through a very similar thing and they were very grateful.”
She says she doesn’t believe telling players to get off social media is the solution.
“It’s a cop-out,” she said.
“Social media is a great way to connect with positive people, and it’s also work.”
Reply to haters
Destanee Aiava is looking forward to moving on with her life after announcing her retirement from tennis. (triple j hack)
As for those who say Aiava doesn’t have what it takes to continue playing tennis, she says that’s not it.
“I totally disagree,” she tells Triple J Hack.
“Personally, I think my game was there.
“It was just a question of whether I wanted to do it and whether I loved it enough, and I didn’t.“
Although she says she’s not sure when her last game will be this year, she’s confident she won’t return to the sport.
Instead, she says she’s focused on studying interior design and would also like to do reality TV at some point.
“I feel like I’ve already been scrutinized a lot,” she says.
“So why not?”
