How a defeat to Yuki Bhambri in a tennis match brought a racist troll out for Jay Clarke

Bengaluru, November 22: British tennis player Jay Clarke hasn't had a great record against Yuki Bhambri, India's No 1 tennis player. The 19-year-old has lost twice in two matches so far against Bhambri. While the latest one came in the quarters at the KPIT MSLTA Challenger in Pune last week, it's the first defeat - coming in the Nottingham Open first round in June - that evokes bad memories for Clarke.

Just after that 6-7 (2), 1-6 loss to Bhambri in June, then ranked World No 231, he received a series of messages on Instagram calling him a monkey. Another set of messages from the same account - salgam.duyguu - had a set of monkey emojis.
It wasn't the first racist message that Clarke says he has received, but it was the first time he spoke out against it. There are other unknown faces too - Clarke says he receives 10-15 messages a month.

"It still happens," Clarke said after his second-round victory over Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-7 (3/7), 6-2, 6-4 at the Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger at the KSLTA Courts on Wednesday. "There's nothing really you can do about it. Obviously, it's not great to accept it. But I have had this kind of experience off the court as well - nothing to do with tennis. So it happens."

Sad to share but I think its important for you all to know what most players of colour across all sports have to put up with daily #Sameold pic.twitter.com/WJEvNq7anj

— Jay Alexander Clarke (@Jay27798) June 12, 2017

At first, Clarke says he found it disturbing that people chose to comment about his colour. But over time, he says he has learnt to ignore it.

"It was tough at start," he said. "I was first racially abused when I was 13 years old. I was told by my father (also a tennis player) that this will happen from a young age. I learnt to accept it. I kept quiet for a long time, but everyone has to see what kind of people are out there. Tennis is a great sport, but so much s*** happens off the court as well."

This year has already seen many instances of racism in sport. Gael Monfils has admitted that racial abuses had been hurled at him in the past. Serena Williams too had to hear about the colour of her then unborn baby being made fun of by former Romanian tennis player Ilie Nastase. Outside of tennis, Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton as well as former World No 1 golfer Tiger Woods have admitted to being victims of racial chants.

Just a day ago, Irish footballer Cyrus Christie spoke out against racist trolls, a day after Ireland failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Italian football too has been rocked by racism allegations time and again.

Clarke, 19, comes from a family of tennis players. His sister Yasmin played in the national level for Britain and even she had filed a racial discrimination case against the Lawn Tennis Association (of England) as well as popular coach and former player David Lloyd.
The Derby native hopes that many players come out against racism, especially in sport.

"A few come out when it's really bad," he said. "Being called an idiot when you have had a bad day is not great. Then the racial abuse happens, it just goes worse. If more people do it (come out against racism), then I think situation will improve. Yeah, it's good to see that everyone's seeing it."

He hogged the limelight when he and Marcus Willis upset Wimbledon defending champions Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hughes Herbert in the second round in a five-setter this year. However, Clarke knows that he might have to deal with more as his rankings improve.

"I have not been called anything in the stadium," he said. "I don't think anyone came up to me. It's easy to say stuff online. Never been told to my face."

"That was great," he said of his Wimbledon stint. "It's my best win so far. Both players were in the top 50 at the time. To beat them when I had played only one match with Willis was good. We didn't go with any expectations. We knew we had the level when we made past the last round of qualifying. But we didn't think we would win. Come on, those were the defending champions. We just tried to keep clam and holding serve. And that worked. The thought was to keep holding the serve and play aggressive if you have the chance."

Learning with Andy Murray

The youngster had a training stint in Sweden along with Gael Monfils and Grigor Dimitrov, where he claims the experience helped him breaking into the top-250 after being ranked over 1,600 two years ago.

Clarke also often trains with Andy Murray, former World No 1 and ranked 16th now, which he says has worked for him tremendously.

"I was only in Sweden only for three months. It was a great experience. But I am back home training with my brother and sister. I train in derby. We have a small centre there.

"The experience in Sweden was good when all the good player were there. Stan, Dimitrov, Monfils (were there), but when they went away for around four months, they took all the good coaches away. I was with people my age, which got expensive for me.

Great effort @Jay27798 into the QFs in Bangalore 0,000 after taking out last weeks finalist.. Ramkumar Ramanathan 😎💪🏽☀️🎾 @MSTARTTRUST #LittleOne #OnTheRise pic.twitter.com/k0P1uYXvF6

— Yaz Clarke (@YazClarke) November 22, 2017

"It's great to train with Andy as well. Training with Andy makes playing these matches easy. Nothing against Ram, he's a great player of course. But I am training with the No 1 in the world and Ram's at (around) 140. I feel my ranking doesn't show where I am yet. But I haven't played that much yet.

"So the next season, I will play more Challengers. I played my sixth one here and have made three quarter-finals. The goal is to top my ranking of the previous year. Two years ago, I was ranked 1600. Then the last year, I went to 500 and this year, I have broken into 260. I have gone up fast and hope that happens next year too."