Britain's Jodie Burrage has received death threats and abuse on social media after she was beaten in the first round of the Chennai Open on Tuesday. Burrage, who was playing her first WTA Tour singles match in 16 months, went down to a 3-6 6-3 7-5 defeat against India's Vaishnavi Adkar. The 27-year-old, who reached a career-high ranking 85 in September 2023, published an Instagram story with some of the abuse received due to the defeat.
"Nice welcome back to tour. I remember why I left," Burrage said in the accompanying message. German player Eva Lys tagged the WTA from her Instagram handle and asked: "When will something be done?" Last July, Burrage urged gambling companies and social media companies to do more to tackle online trolls.
Speaking after her first-round defeat to American Caty McNally at Wimbledon, Burrage said she has had to stop herself from looking at her phone due to online abuse. "I think it's very simple to have someone's ID connected to their account and that would, I think, quickly stop what people write and make them more accountable," Burrage said. "I'm just guessing that they're gamblers; some of them say, 'You've lost me this amount of money' or whatever, so some of them are.
I don't know, that's the only explanation I've got otherwise they are just very bad people. "But yes, it's tough and today I'm trying not to look at my phone. It's not easy to deal with, but I do think there could be more being done." A report from the Women's Tennis Association and International Tennis Federation revealed that 458 players were direct targets of abuse in 2024.
The report, produced using an AI-led detection system developed by the Signify Group, found that 40% of the social media abuse came from frustrated gamblers, a figure that rose to 77% for direct abuse directed towards players' personal accounts. Katie Boulter also opened up about the level of abuse aimed at some players and said she and her family have received death threats last year. Boulter believes much of the abuse comes from gamblers who have lost money and while she has learned how to better handle it over the years, incidents can raise genuine concerns for her safety.
"I think it just kind of shows how vulnerable we are. You really don't know if this person is on site. You really don't know if they're nearby or if they know where you live or anything like that," she said.
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