By Amirah Ahmedi
“Pressure is a privilege,” Billie Jean King famously said, and in many ways, it is for elite athletes. Pressure can mean visibility, opportunity and success. But for women in tennis, the pressure often stretches far beyond the game itself.
Tennis is one of the most popular individual sports, and like most sports, your mental game is tested just as intensely as your physical one. On the court, it is only you and your mind. Every point, game, and set can change the trajectory of a match, and sometimes the silence is deafening. For women, there are added layers to these mental battles, both on and off the court. At times, the public and media gaze shifts from admiration to hostility, and the safety of high-profile players is compromised. Gendered and sexualised threats are far more common for women.
Instead of focusing solely on the game, women are forced to police their appearance and personality: not “too dominant,” not “too emotional,” not “too assertive,” — not “too much,” a phrase most women, athlete or not, know all too well.
The Invisible Opponent
Unlike team sports, tennis players cannot rely on teammates to absorb pressure. Matches can last for extensive hours, during which the player faces momentum swings, crowd hostility, and loneliness — all of which can magnify stress without strong mental discipline. But mental discipline itself can take a toll. Psychological strain has derailed even the top players, and today we see more women speaking openly about that reality.
In 2021, when Naomi Osaka withdrew from a Roland Garros press conference — for which she was fined $15,000 — explaining that she felt it was like “kicking a person down while they’re down,” she was labelled as difficult and even as a diva in some sections of the media, portraying her as emotionally unstable, a trope that has long followed women. She then came forward on X speaking about her battles with anxiety and depression, which the press obligations had only exacerbated, leading her to withdraw from Roland Garros as a whole. What began as a cry for help, which was ignored and belittled, ultimately proved Osaka’s point.
Behind “the Minister of Happiness”, Ons Jabeur’s nickname, is an athlete who has openly discussed her mental battles despite always putting on a smile. As a former world No. 2, it shows the huge mental exercise she put into practice to reach that level, but she has shown even greater strength by coming forward about the toll it has taken. The extreme emotional regulation required of Jabeur began to translate into physical issues. Just this July at Wimbledon, she was experiencing breathing problems, and alongside dealing with ongoing depression and panic attacks, she stated, “My body was screaming for help for a long time.” With so much pressure on women to match the perceived mental strength of men, especially in sport, where they are expected to overthrow long-held preconceptions and stereotypes, this leaves women in the spotlight carrying an enormous emotional load.
In 2023, after her Wimbledon final loss, she spoke about another loss she encountered. “If I had won this final, I was going to try and have a baby right away. And that dream faded.” This intrinsic tie between fulfilling her career goals and having a baby is a tough standard to hold herself to. She stated she wanted to fulfil her career goals before taking on motherhood. Putting tennis before motherhood can be an especially difficult decision for a woman trying to juggle both career ambitions and life goals.
However, this year Jabeur came onto Instagram to tell her fans she would be taking time away from tennis, “to finally put herself first.” She added, “Honestly, I’m done letting the schedule dictate what I should do and what I should not do.” She speaks about the tennis schedule being too demanding, but this also connects back to how the structure of the tour affects womanhood and decisions around pregnancy, recovery and identity. In the end, Jabeur being able to put her mental health first is the true win.
Race as Another Rival
With women fighting throughout the 20th century to participate in competitive sport, tennis was deemed acceptable because it was considered “ladylike.” But, once women’s bodies began to look athletic and strong-built, reflecting their training, athletes like Serena Williams did not tap into that ideal. In 2013, a Rolling Stone article described her as “black, beautiful and built like one of those monster trucks that crushes Volkswagens at sports arenas.” When trying to express her strength, a backhanded compliment was delivered instead. “Beautiful” feels like a juxtaposition or even a cop-out next to “monster truck”, but it speaks to a society unfamiliar with women who are both powerful and Black. Athletes reading or internalising these narratives are subject to anxiety, self-consciousness or pressure to alter their bodies, framed as threatening.
This summer, on the Today Show, Williams openly discussed using the GLP-1 drug Zepbound and losing 31 pounds. Despite all her training and best efforts to lose weight, she said she struggled to lose her postpartum weight. The unrealistic standards women face around their bodies are persistent, especially when in the spotlight and subject to public scrutiny. Over time, comments on her shape, from being called a “gorilla,” to being hypersexualised and criticised simply for having a curvaceous body, could have subconsciously intensified her weight loss journey. All of this feeds into a message she has absorbed throughout her career — that her weight, and even her body itself, is tied to her worth.
On-court Black players still face additional mental hurdles from their components. During this year’s Roland Garros final, Coco Gauff’s victory against Aryna Sabalenka caused her to spew some distasteful remarks. She stated, “I think she won the match not because she played incredible [but] just because I made all of those mistakes.” Despite her regret and apology for her words, this draws attention to a wider pattern where Black achievement is depicted as accidental or less deserving. A couple of months later, during the US Open, Jelena Ostapenko faced backlash for confronting and insulting Taylor Townsend on the court, saying she had “no education” and “no class.” She also later apologised and expressed that English is not her first language. Even with the language barrier of Ostapenko, these particular descriptions perpetuate stereotypes historically used to isolate Black Americans, as well as having detrimental effects on players.
In spite of the adrenaline and emotion that elite competition brings, it is a shame to see women tap into these forms of rivalries that pit them against each other, but it speaks to a deeper ingrained culture. These remarks do not just stay on the court; they create psychological noise that Black players have to compartmentalise. They reinforce an atmosphere in which Black athletes must prove their legitimacy time and time again.
Even with umpires, a double standard has been raised. In the 2018 US Open final, Williams was unfairly penalised for a coaching violation, something that happens often, but players are seldom held responsible for and potentially contributed to her loss. Harsher rules for Black women place an aspect of self-monitoring that can be mentally draining. This was an issue in itself, but the way in which Williams responded to the umpire drew even more attention. Anger, a common emotion present in competitive sport, was treated differently when expressed by a Black woman, showcasing how their anger is often villainised and magnified.
Off-court components, like the media, add another layer of scrutiny. Comments from the 2013 Rolling Stone piece, “She runs women’s tennis like Kim Jong-un runs North Korea.” Such language associates Williams with tyranny or authoritarian control, suggesting she is aggressive or threatening simply because she mastered the sport she plays. More so, it reflects a prejudice she has faced over time. When dominance is framed in such a light, it creates an added psychological burden: playing while aware that every gesture, every victory, every emotional reaction could be interpreted through a distorted lens. This further raises the question: why is it that when male athletes display the same dominance, they are praised as confident or strategic, not dictatorial?
When Danger Steps Onto the Court
The mental battle on court is already demanding, but unfortunately, it is not the only one players face. Dangers posed to women tennis players can have a severe mental strain on them. WTA and ITF data show that “WTA tennis players received around 8,000 threats between January and December 2024,” all of which “were abusive, violent or threatening.”Male tennis players have received online threats and experienced court invasions, often for humorous purposes, protest, or spectacle. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for women tennis players — online obsessive threats have translated into real-life horrors.
Just this February, during the Dubai tournament, 23-year-oldEmma Raducanu spotted her stalker mid-match, who had already been issued a restraining order. There are images from the event showing Raducanu hiding behind the umpire’s chair, exhibiting emotional distress. The man was subsequently dealt with and banned from WTA events. What is even more unsettling is that it did not stop him from attempting to enter the Wimbledon ballot for the same year. This kind of persistence and ongoing threat would be unnerving for any player, especially when legal action is in place. The psychological impact of knowing someone is fixated on you — despite security measures — adds a heavy, often invisible burden to an already challenging sport. The following month, at the Miami Open, Iga Swiatek, the same age as Raducanu at the time, was verbally attacked. The same individual who had sent Swiatek abusive messages on social media bombarded her during a practice session, harassing not only her but also her family. There is a concerning trend where young female players are increasingly subjected to threats that move from online to in-person danger.
Tennis has witnessed how quickly threats can escalate. In 1993, a more extreme case was when Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a quarter-final. No athlete, no woman, should have to question the safety of their life on court. Thankfully, more measures are now in place to prevent such incidents. However, you can imagine what runs through a high-profile tennis player’s mind, such as Raducanu and Swiatek, when dealing with real-life threats, in the midst of doing their job and playing the sport they love.
In 2024, the WTA, ITF, AELTC and USTA partnered with Signify Group’s Threat Matrix, the AI system built to track and flag harmful online content. The worst cases were investigated, with 15 accounts being passed on to law enforcement. Forward to 2025, the updated safeguarding code introduced“the establishment of an independent arbitration process managed by JAMS (Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services) [ensuring] that appeals are handled impartially and transparently.” These advancements help promote a safer environment for tennis players and call out unacceptable behaviour that social media enables. Even with these improvements, most of the protection in tennis is still centred around issues like gambling-related abuse, stalking and physical threats. These systems deal with the immediate, reactive harm but do not directly address racism, which is ongoing, predictable and rooted in the sport’s history. Online abuse might be monitored more closely, but there is still no specific framework for racial harassment and no real anti-racism structure within tennis governance. Racism is still the one area without an institutional safety net, meaning Black and minority players end up carrying that extra mental load alone.
All of these pressures contribute to burnout. Women, as in any field, are judged more harshly than men — not only on performance, but also on personality, emotions and appearance. Tennis is already mentally intense before gendered expectations are added. When players are made hyper-aware of stereotypes and expectations it becomes harder to play instinctively. Women’s tennis has come a long way since events like the “Battle of the Sexes,” which proved that women are equally capable in a sport built on psychological strength. And while Grand Slams now offer equal prize money, a pay gap still exists throughout the wider tour. This adds another psychological weight: women are reminded that, financially, the sport still “values” them less.
As Ons Jabeur put it: “I think it is time to speak up and to change this. I feel like they see us as robots, but not as human beings anymore on the court. Just play, play, play.” High-profile sport may be entertainment, but the reality for players is far more complex — it is their well-being. There is still a severe lack of institutional safeguarding to protect or support women’s mental health. As more players come forward to share their experiences, the call for stronger support systems is becoming impossible to ignore.
This conversation is part of Wempower’s new series Level the Playing Field, dedicated entirely to women in sport. Each Monday, we publish a new story highlighting the women reshaping the world of sport — on and off the field. To read more inspiring stories of everyday women making a real difference in the world, be sure to check out the latest edition of Wempower magazine, or listen to our podcast.
