Sloane Stephens discussed racism toward athletes after her first-round win at the French Open on Monday. Despite the tournament being the first of the four Grand Slams to implement software designed to block racist comments toward players online, Stephens said the abuse has “only gotten worse.”

“Obviously it's been something that I have dealt with my whole career,” Stephens said. “I think that, like I said, it's only continued to get worse, and people online have the free rein to say and do whatever they want behind fake pages, which is obviously very troublesome. It's something I have had to deal with my whole career and something I will continue to deal with, I'm sure. That's that.”

Stephens said she has not used the software provided for players but does have specific words blocked on her social media pages.

“But that doesn't stop someone from just typing in an asterisk or typing it in a different way, which obviously software most of the time doesn't catch,” Stephens said.

Stephens, the 30th-ranked player in the world, beat former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova in straight sets to advance to the second round of the French Open. The American reached the final of the French Open in 2018 and won the 2017 US Open, her only Grand Slam win to date.

Sloane Stephens and other athletes, such as footballer Vinicius Junior who recently received racist chants during a match in Spain, have long had to endure racism toward them. It's unfortunate that software even needs to be created to block such comments.