Tennis player Burrage receives death threats, abuse on social media after 1st WTA match in 16 months
Jodie Burrage of Britain plays a forehand return to Coco Gauff of the U.S. during their second round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. Credit: AP/Vincent Thian
LONDON — British tennis player Jodie Burrage has received death threats and a torrent of abuse on social media after she was defeated in her first main-draw singles match on the WTA Tour in 16 months.
Burrage shared a recording of a lengthy reel of abusive messages she received on Instagram following a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 loss to Vaishnavi Adkar in the round of 32 at the Chennai Open on Tuesday.
Alongside the video, Burrage wrote: “Nice welcome back to the tour. I remember why I left.”
Many of the abusive messages appeared to be from gamblers unhappy that the 27-year-old Burrage had lost.
World Tennis, the sport’s governing body, said in December 2024 that “angry gamblers” were responsible for 48% of the more than 12,000 posts on social media platforms from January to October that year which were deemed abusive by a monitoring service.
In July this year, the WTA said in a report into online abuse of players that 89% of accounts responsible for serious abuse in 2024 did not reappear in 2025, and that it secured the removal of 66% of serious abusive posts or comments, while escalating 35 accounts to law enforcement.
Last month, Coco Gauff said she received an “insane” amount of racist comments on social media following a controversial point in a match against home player Sun Xinran at the China Open.
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