Britain’s Jodie Burrage obtained dying threats and abuse on social media after she was overwhelmed in her first WTA Tour singles match correct for 16 months.
The 27-year-old, ranked 474th on this planet, suffered a first-round exit on the Chennai Open after India’s Vaishnavi Adkar fought again from a set all the way down to triumph 3-6 6-3 7-5.
Burrage later shared a narrative on her Instagram account, exterior with a video scroll of direct messages, together with abuse, she was despatched following the match.
“Good welcome again to tour. I bear in mind why I left,” mentioned the Londoner within the accompanying message.
Germany’s Eva Lys confirmed solidarity with Burrage, tagging the WTA from her Instagram deal with and asking: “When will one thing be accomplished?”
British quantity 15 Burrage’s final match on the WTA Tour, excluding qualifiers, was in July 2025 when she misplaced to Catherine McNally within the first spherical at Wimbledon.
Feminine tennis gamers had been subjected to greater than 12,000 abusive posts and messages on social media final yr, in response to a report printed earlier this yr.
Knowledge from the Signify Group’s risk matrix service, which makes use of synthetic intelligence-led detection, confirmed an analogous variety of abusive posts in 2025 to 2024.
A report from the identical group two years in the past discovered that indignant gamblers had been behind 48% of posts which had been deemed to be abusive.
They had been accountable for 42% of verified abuse in 2025 and 59% of circumstances of great abuse.
In 2025, Britain’s Katie Boulter instructed BBC Sport she had obtained dying threats.
Fellow gamers referred to as for id verification to be launched by social media platforms to attempt to handle the problem.
The WTA’s participant board has beforehand condemned the abuse as “unacceptable” and mentioned the influence may be “vital”.
