A tremendous performance to qualify for the Australian Open main draw brought the emotions out for Destanee Aiava, but her victory against online trolls made the moment sweeter.
The 24-year-old took down two seeds en route to the main field at Melbourne Park, with wins against No.10 seed Ana Bogdan and No.23 seed Eva Lys respectively.
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Preparation for the new season was less than ideal for Aiava, releasing an honest assessment of her United Cup experience on YouTube as she unmasked a "poor culture" in the Australia camp.
As a result, she didn't feature in any matches this year, making her Australian Open qualification all the more spectacular.
But before Aiava took to the court against Lys, she faced online trolling, which targeted her body appearance with comparisons made to Maria Sharapova wearing the same Nike dress design.
A comment made on X, which has since been deleted, read: "Not to hate or body shame anyone but Destanee Aiava needs to lose some weight to get more quick on her feet imo."
Standing her ground and taking a stance, Aiava hit back with a fiery response.
"Shut the f**k up. ‘Not to hate’ or ‘body shame’ and then you went and hated and body shamed," she wrote.
The Victorian left a separate reply, writing: "Good job triggering my ED (eating disorder)."
The responses came from tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg's post.
However, it attracted another nasty comment directed at Aiava.
"Omg why would she wear a dress that doesn’t suit her at all? She made a mess of the outfit with her unproportionate body, her bulges covering the dress design."
Despite witnessing some of the negative online media activity, Aiava will feature in her fifth Australian Open main draw, with the hope of moving past the opening round for the first time at a Slam.
After her second-round qualifying victory over Hungary's Panna Udvardy, the world No.195 was asked if the online comments impacted her.
"I was [impacted]. It’s not nice to see those comments," Aiava said.
"I don’t really look for them. Sometimes I look my name up just to find photos of my matches, and then I see the bad stuff.
"I’ve been told to bite my tongue but I don’t really like to."
Aiava will face Belgium's Greet Minnen in the first-round at Melbourne Park.
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