Jodie Burrage urges social media accountability after Chennai abuse

Jodie Burrage has called for stronger accountability on social media after receiving death threats following her defeat in Chennai, BBC Sport reported on November 5. The British player shared screenshots on Instagram after losing 3-6 6-3 7-5 to Indian wildcard Vaishnavi Adkar in her first WTA Tour singles match for 16 months.

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Burrage, 27, told the BBC that repeated exposure meant she did not fear for her safety, but said abusive messages could be harder to withstand when players were already struggling. She described receiving abuse after both victories and defeats, including after each of her four matches in Wrexham last month.

She proposed requiring identification for Instagram accounts to make users more accountable. Burrage also said her blood pressure dropped late in the Chennai match. Still competing in doubles, she described her current work as preparation for 2027, with a team being built around her after injury and illness disrupted her singles return.

The wider scale of the problem was documented in a report published by the WTA and World Tennis on July 16. Drawing on Signify Group's Threat Matrix service, it examined more than 1.2 million posts and comments during 2025. Over 12,000 were classified as abusive, including 3,726 involving serious abuse such as violent, sexual or racist content and targeted threats.

The report attributed 42% of verified abuse to angry gamblers, rising to 59% among serious cases. A small group of accounts generated a disproportionate share of the most concerning material: 9% of abusive accounts were responsible for 87% of abuse classified as high concern. Investigators fully or partially identified 68 abusive accounts, compared with 39 in 2024.

The governing bodies also reported action against offenders. Two-thirds of serious abusive posts or comments were removed, while 35 accounts linked to 12 individuals were referred to law enforcement. Twenty-six prolific accounts on X and Instagram were removed after each posted more than 30 abusive messages. Together, those accounts had generated 21% of all abuse detected during the year.