AAP Tennis

Burrage cops death threats, online abuse after loss

By AAP Newswire

Nov 4, 2026

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.

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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 the 27-year-old Burrage had lost.

Burrage was a part of the Great Britain team that beat Australia in Melbourne to progress to the Billie Jean Cup finals in April.

World Tennis, the sport's governing body, said in December 2024 "angry gamblers" were responsible for 48 per cent 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 per cent of accounts responsible for serious abuse in 2024 did not reappear in 2025, and it secured the removal of 66 per cent 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.