It is sometimes easy to get fooled by who is saying what on social media. That appears to be the case of an alleged expletive statement expressed between German tennis stars past and present, Boris Becker and Alexander Zverev.
Zverev has been under scrutiny for a variety of issues, but most recently, it is his French Open quarterfinal loss to Novak Djokovic. Alexander Zverev was apparently criticized by Becker, according to Tennis 365, for not making a coaching change to potentially create better results. Zverev responded by saying that he has a good relationship with Becker and is always open to talking with him. German tennis is a tight-knit community so presumably agreeing to disagree on this issue would be the final outcome for Boris Becker and Alexander Zverev.
Tennis social media stirs the pot between Boris Becker and Alexander Zverev
However, the story does not end there. While Becker did air his opinion on Zverev, an outside party using a Boris Becker parody X/Twitter account took the matter to a new level. @TheB0risBecker (the o is actually a zero) who has 767 followers wrote “You are a@#, word.”
That grabbed the attention of fans who began to share their thoughts on this apparent escalation. Many appeared to not realize this was a Boris Becker parody account and believed the expletive came from Becker himself. Some agreed with the expletive-laden rant by the parody account. Others defended Zverev and said the issue with Zverev is not as simple as ‘Becker” makes it out to be.
Toxic sports social media
This is yet another example of the toxic nature of sports social media. Fans believe they can hide behind a computer and have free rein to say anything they want about an athlete. These comments do not even scratch the surface of the horrible things bettors says about players. While freedom of speech is an inherent right, respect and decorum should still be present in online communications.
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