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Professional tennis players including Jiri Lehecka, Lorenzo Musetti and Leandro Riedi describe how spectators with betting interests are increasingly disrupting matches from the stands, prompting calls for the sport's governing bodies to introduce new rules and security measures to address the problem during tournaments such as the US Open and the Italian Open.
Players at the US Open have reported hearing comments in the stands intended to put them off their game, a trend that several professional tennis players say has become increasingly common at tournaments around the world.
Czech player Jiri Lehecka recently described an incident that took place a couple of years ago when he was competing on Court 4 at a smaller venue. During the first three sets of his match, a spectator seated directly behind his bench engaged in nonstop verbal harassment, repeatedly telling him that he could not win, that he looked tired, and that his opponent was better.
Lehecka managed to maintain his composure and ultimately won the match, but he remained curious about the spectator's true motivations. After the match, he spoke with the chair umpire and asked whether such behavior was considered normal and whether anything could be done about it. He was told that the umpire could not intervene unless the spectator crossed the line into direct insults, a response that highlighted how difficult it is for officials to address this kind of calculated disruption.
Lehecka came away convinced that the man was not simply a passionate supporter of his opponent, but rather a bettor who had wagered on Lehecka to lose and had positioned himself in the stands specifically to influence the result. The presence of disruptive bettors in the stands has become a growing concern across the professional tennis circuit, affecting Grand Slam events, ATP and WTA tour stops, and even matches on the lower-level World Tennis Tour, where the problem can be even more pronounced due to the absence of large crowds and close proximity of spectators to the court.
The Italian Open in Rome has earned a particular reputation for the phenomenon, with players regularly reporting incidents of spectators attempting to get inside their heads during matches held at the picturesque Pietrangeli stadium. The US Open is another tournament where these complaints have surfaced repeatedly. Italian world number fourteen Lorenzo Musetti confirmed that he has experienced similar situations not only in Italy but in many other parts of the world.
He noted that it is often quite obvious when certain individuals in the crowd are betting on outcomes and are cheering for players who may not be the local favorite, or actively disturbing the flow of the match. Last year, Swiss player Leandro Riedi took matters into his own hands when he angrily confronted a spectator he suspected had placed a wager on him to win, before reporting the individual to the chair umpire.
Betting has become an unavoidable and often unwelcome element of modern professional tennis, affecting players at every level of the sport. Beyond the in-stadium disruptions, athletes regularly face abuse, threats, and hateful messages on social media from bettors following losses and even victories. The sport has also been plagued by corruption over the years, with multiple players having been sanctioned for deliberately throwing matches to satisfy gambling interests.
This year's US Open has further amplified the conversation, as the tournament's organizers announced a partnership with Kalshi, a sports betting and prediction market company, on the eve of the event. Almost immediately after the announcement, the US Open app began sending push notifications promoting articles sponsored by Kalshi that offered match predictions, creating a sharp contrast between the financial benefits the tournament derives from betting and the very real harassment that players continue to endure from gamblers.
Currently, there are no specific rules in the ATP, WTA, or Grand Slam rulebooks designed to identify or remove disruptive bettors from the stands, and chair umpires are only able to step in when a spectator's behavior crosses the threshold into outright verbal abuse. Players remain divided over how to handle the situation.
Some, like Musetti, believe that tennis governing bodies and tournament organizers have a responsibility to do more, including deploying additional security to identify and remove individuals who are clearly present to manipulate matches. Others have adopted a more resigned attitude, suggesting that the presence of bettors in the stands has simply become an unfortunate reality of professional tennis that athletes must learn to manage as part of their careers.
Czech player Jakub Mensik captured this widespread sense of weary acceptance when he remarked that dealing with betting-related pressures is essentially already part of life for modern athletes, and that there is no realistic alternative but to learn how to handle it
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