Obsessed Fans Haunt Women on Tennis Tour

Jesper Andreassen held up a plate of 10 jalapenos for the camera, then stuffed them into his mouth, one by one, proudly tossing each stem over his shoulder as he finished. (Halep, Bouchard Wilt, But no Drama in Men's Draw)

He paused several times to curse, laugh, cough or shout, sounds that devolved into a series of pained growls as he neared the end. Once the last pepper had been consumed, Andreassen, a middle-aged Dane, thanked the viewer for watching. The clip, which Andreassen posted to Facebook in August, had one person as its target audience: Simona Halep, a Romanian tennis player who has been given the nickname Halepeno. (Djokovic, Serena Face Wimbledon Heat)

For months, Andreassen had tried to prove his devotion to Halep online, addressing her in a barrage of flattering posts on Twitter. But in April, after seeing a rumor that Halep was planning to marry, Andreassen changed his tone. He became threatening and demeaning, telling Halep that she would die or never walk again for mistreating him. (Nadal Basks in the Sun as Temperature Reaches Record High)

Halep, who is ranked No. 3 in the world, was playing at a tournament in Stuttgart, Germany, when the threats surfaced, and security officials there were immediately briefed.

Twenty-two years after Monica Seles, the top-ranked women's player at the time, was stabbed in the back by a Steffi Graf fan during a changeover at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany, many female tennis players say personal security remains an unsettling aspect of life on the professional tour. Officials with the Women's Tennis Association, the worldwide governing body, say they continue to make the security of tour players their No. 1 concern. But at the same time, social media has brought players and fans closer than ever, and at times that proximity can be frightening.

That was why, after Andreassen's threats emerged, security personnel surrounded Halep's practice session, even though it was held in the morning, before the Stuttgart complex opened to the public.

As she practiced, security personnel looked under seats for suspicious items and even examined empty ball canisters that had been left behind by the last player to use the court.

Halep entered Stuttgart with a 24-3 record, but has since lost five of 11 matches, including defeats in the second round of the French Open and on Tuesday in the first round of Wimbledon. After that loss, to 106th-ranked Jana Cepelova, Halep attributed her recent struggles to several factors, but did not reject the notion that stress caused by Andreassen could have contributed to her slump.

"Yeah, can be," she said. "I didn't think about this."

John Tobias, an agent for several prominent players, including Caroline Wozniacki and Sloane Stephens, said safety concerns were greater for the female players he represented than for his male clients. He said he did not give out the home addresses of his female clients, even to sponsors. When new products come in, they are delivered to the agency's office and then sent to the player by courier.

"We do little things like that, just if there's some guy who happened to work in shipping at Babolat," he said, using Wozniacki's racket sponsor as an example.

File photo: Caroline Wozniacki

© AFP

On Sunday, Wozniacki posted a photo on Twitter of one of the new Adidas shoes she had received. On the inside of the shoe was a handwritten note from a man named Andy, who asked her to call him and included a heart drawing and his phone number. "Very creative," Wozniacki wrote.

Although Wozniacki said she took precautions, she acknowledged a sense of helplessness in a global sport that allows the public close access to its stars nearly every week.

"With social media and with the tournaments being where they are, if someone really wants to find you and really wants do something, you can't do anything about it," she said. In the end, she said, "I think you should just enjoy life and do what you want to do, and just hope that people are good out there."

Pam Shriver, who was president of the WTA when Seles was attacked, said that day was a seminal moment for women's tennis. "The world totally changed after that," she said.

Some changes were visible. Players' chairs were placed farther from the stands, and during changeovers security personnel began standing on the court, facing the crowd. But other changes came in safety seminars given by the tour to its shaken players.

"There were things like, never, ever, in a public setting, say what hotel you're staying at," Shriver said. "Never say to a friend across the lobby what room number you're in. When you go down to work out at the hotel health club, and they ask you what room number you're in, don't ever write it down. When you're a young athlete, you might not consider that. But post-Seles, you did."

Seles did not return to the sport for more than two years after she was attacked. She never regained her dominance.

 Venus Williams said she was always conscious of potentially being targeted. She said she worked on her "first step" to be able to escape dangerous situations.

"You have to be aware, and you have to know what's around you as a player," Williams said. "If you become any sort of public profile, there's a chance that there are some people out there who are not as stable as you'd like. And that's not just tennis; it's with everything. It's one of the risks.

© 2015, The New York Times News Service