His Brother Received Messages Threatening to "Kill Your Family" if Matteo Didn't LoseWhat should have been a straightforward night of celebration for Matteo Berrettini, after beating Stan Wawrinka in three sets to reach the second round of the US Open, took a darker turn when a reporter's question about gambling led him to reveal something he'd been carrying quietly since the French Open.Journalist Ben Rothenberg asked Berrettini for his take on the US Open's new sponsorship deal with a prediction-market company. His answer went well beyond a simple opinion on sponsorship. Berrettini disclosed that his younger brother Jacopo, also a professional tennis player and one of Matteo's most visible supporters, had received threatening messages on his phone during Berrettini's run to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros earlier this year, a tournament that ended for him with a forced retirement against fellow Italian Matteo Arnaldi.What the Messages Actually SaidBerrettini didn't soften the content when describing it. According to him, after he won a match at Roland Garros, his brother's phone lit up with messages whose meaning was unmistakable: that Matteo was performing poorly, and that unless he was told to lose, whoever was behind the messages would kill his family. He said the family reported everything to the ATP and filed a formal complaint. Berrettini was careful to frame the threats within a broader concern rather than treating them purely as a personal grievance. He noted that he and his brother are adults in their thirties, capable of processing something like this, but pointed to younger players and female athletes on tour as being especially vulnerable to exactly this kind of intimidation, something he described as genuinely frightening for anyone less equipped to brush it off. He cited fellow Italian player Lucrezia Stefanini, who he said received disturbing messages of her own at Indian Wells. A Problem Berrettini Says Goes Beyond One IncidentBerrettini connected his family's experience to a pattern he says he's already witnessed firsthand at lower-tier events, particularly Challenger tournaments, where he described seeing people courtside capable of disrupting players over issues that had nothing to do with tennis itself, and where tournament security has a harder time controlling who has access to players. The scale of the broader problem is backed by data he referenced: in 2025, bettors were responsible for 59% of the most serious category of online abuse directed at professional tennis players, a figure that moves the issue well past the territory of ordinary social media rudeness and into something closer to a structural threat facing the sport. Not Anti-Gambling, But Pro-ProtectionNotably, Berrettini didn't call for betting to be removed from tennis altogether. He acknowledged that wagering has become a meaningful economic component of the sport, and said that if handled responsibly, in a controlled way that doesn't tip into corruption, betting on tennis could even be enjoyable for those involved, though he added he's personally never gambled and has no interest in starting, saying casinos and that world simply aren't for him. What he's calling for instead is structural: a stronger, dedicated body specifically tasked with protecting players from this kind of intimidation. He drew a clear line between the ordinary disappointment of losing a bet and threatening a player's family with violence, arguing that gap shouldn't be as easy to cross as it currently seems to be. The Timing Isn't a CoincidenceBerrettini's comments landed at a pointed moment for the tournament itself. The US Open recently announced Kalshi as its first "Official Prediction Market Partner," a deal that puts the platform's branding on digital displays and courtside signage throughout the tournament. Organizers have built in some guardrails: the agreement explicitly excludes markets on higher-risk variables like officiating decisions, player injuries, or code-of-conduct violations, and Kalshi is set to share real-time data with the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) to help flag suspicious trading activity. Whether those safeguards are enough to prevent the kind of threats Berrettini's family received is precisely the question his comments have reopened, right as tennis's relationship with the betting industry grows more formalized rather than less. Ph: Alex Bogatyrev / Shutterstock.com