Britain’s Jodie Burrage received death threats and abuse on social media after she was beaten in her first WTA Tour singles match proper for 16 months.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old, ranked 474th in the world, suffered a first-round exit at the Chennai Open after India’s Vaishnavi Adkar fought back from a set down to triumph 3-6 6-3 7-5.<\/p>\n
Burrage later shared a story on her Instagram account, external<\/a> with a video scroll of direct messages, including abuse, she was sent following the match.<\/p>\n “Nice welcome back to tour. I remember why I left,” said the Londoner in the accompanying message.<\/p>\n Germany’s Eva Lys showed solidarity with Burrage, tagging the WTA from her Instagram handle and asking: “When will something be done?”<\/p>\n British number 15 Burrage’s last match on the WTA Tour, excluding qualifiers, was in July 2025 when she lost to Catherine McNally in the first round at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n Female tennis players were subjected to more than 12,000 abusive posts and messages on social media last year, according to a report published earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Data from the Signify Group’s threat matrix service, which uses artificial intelligence-led detection, showed a similar number of abusive posts in 2025 to 2024.<\/p>\n A report from the same group two years ago found that angry gamblers were behind 48% of posts which were deemed to be abusive.<\/p>\n They were responsible for 42% of verified abuse in 2025 and 59% of cases of serious abuse.<\/p>\n In 2025, Britain’s Katie Boulter told BBC Sport<\/a> she had received death threats.<\/p>\n