ATP: Double specialist Marach: “Received death threats more often”

Oliver Marach about crazy weather and hackers who even create fake profiles of his wife to insult friends.

Actually, things are going brilliantly for Austria’s double specialist Oliver Marach. At Mate Pavic’s side, the 37-year-old has already won in Doha, Auckland and at the Australian Open this year, with finals in Rotterdam and Monte Carlo on the list of successes for 2018, making participation in the ATP World Tour Finals almost fixed, and therefore the forced time-out due to a broken rib at Pavic was more tolerable in the end.

In an interview with the Kleine Zeitung, however, the sixth in the world ranking came up with an unpleasant topic. Threats, insults, insults – things that today’s tennis professionals have to deal with, as US open finalist Madison Keys has often addressed. “The threats come from people betting on a match or a set and then losing their money,” Marach explained. He was last attacked after the lost Monte Carlo final. “Someone wrote that when I get to Roland Garros, he’ll kill me.”

Even if threats of this kind were almost the order of the day, he did not take them too seriously. Worse are hackers who create false instagram profiles and interfere in his private life. “There have been fake accounts of my wife Jessie before. “In their name, friends of mine were then insulted or even threatened.” The ATP knows about the problems, offers internet courses for the professionals. In London, a security unit was even on the way to hunt the hackers.

Marach still doesn’t want to delete his own account, that’s the only way he’ll notice everything. Friends would then contact him and ask whether the corresponding messages would be correct. But, says Marach: “It’s very tedious and time-consuming.”

Time that the double specialist would rather spend on his tennis. Today, Thursday, Marach/Pavic will have a fine meeting on the court in Rome: The two are seeded second and will face Steve Johnson and Dominic Thiem, who won against the Zverev brothers in the opening match.

The Men’s Double Draw in Rome