WTA offers Jodie Burrage extra support after death threats following Chennai Open defeat
The Women's Tennis Association (WTA), which runs the women's pro tour, has offered extra support to British player Jodie Burrage after she received death threats and online abuse. The Guardian reported the support on 4 November 2026.
Burrage lost 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to India's Vaishnavi Adkar at the Chennai Open. It was her first WTA Tour match since last summer, and she went down in three sets. Afterwards she shared some of the abusive messages sent to her Instagram account, with the caption "Nice welcome back to the tour. I remember why I left."
The WTA has staff in Chennai to support her, working with its player welfare team and a service called Threat Matrix. That service uses artificial intelligence to spot online abuse. It was set up with Wimbledon and the United States Tennis Association to find and tackle abuse against players and officials.
Burrage's support package includes a private channel for reporting abusive direct messages. It also includes moderation that hides abusive comments on public posts before she sees them. Threat Matrix is passing the abuse she received to the social media platforms, and investigations are under way to identify those responsible.
Where abuse is linked to betting, the people behind it will be added to the Bad Actor programme. That lets betting companies act against their accounts. Gambling is a recurring theme in this kind of abuse. Threat Matrix data for 2025 showed that angry gamblers were behind 42% of verified abuse against female players, and 59% of serious abuse.
The scale of the problem is wider than one player. Threat Matrix data showed that female tennis players faced more than 12,000 abusive posts and messages on social media in 2025. A July report said 66% of serious abusive posts and comments the service identified were removed. It also said 35 accounts linked to 12 individuals had been escalated to law enforcement.
Burrage has spoken about online abuse before. She raised the issue after her first-round exit from Wimbledon in 2025. This time, the response has come from the tour itself, with staff on the ground in India.
For a player returning from a long break, a first match is hard enough. Burrage now has a court to think about, and a social media feed she has to manage at the same time. The investigations into who sent the threats are still open.
