WTA Chennai Open: Jodie Burrage receives death threats after loss to Vaishnavi Adkar

Britain’s Jodie Burrage has received death threats and online abuse following her first-round loss to India’s Vaishnavi Adkar at the 2026 WTA Chennai Open.

Burrage lost to India's Vaishnavi Adkar in three sets 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 after two hours and 47 minutes. The 27-year-old was leading 5-3 in the decider before losing fourth games in a row to concede.

Burrage took to her Instagram and shared a story with a video scroll of messages received following her match.

“Nice welcome back to tour. I remember why I left,” Burrage said in an accompanying message.

Burrage reached a career-high ranking 85 in September 2023 and was playing her first WTA Tour singles match in 16 months. Her last match on the WTA Tour was in July 2025 (excluding qualifiers) when she lost to Catherine McNally in the first round at Wimbledon.

Burrage received support from Germany's Eva Lys who tagged WTA on her social media account questioning: "When will something be done?"

According to a report published earlier this year, women tennis players were subjected to more than 12,000 abusive posts and messages on social media last year. Data from the Signify Group's threat matrix service, which uses AI-led detection, showed a similar number of abusive posts in 2025 to 2024.

A report from the same group two years ago found that angry gamblers were behind 48% of posts which were deemed to be abusive.

They were responsible for 42% of verified abuse in 2025 and 59% of cases of serious abuse.

'Online abuse taking mental toll on tennis players'

The growing menace of online abuse against tennis players has become a mentally draining reality of life on the professional circuit, Hungarian Panna Udvardy.

Udvardy, who herself has been at the receiving end of threats, said players were increasingly being subjected to hostility on social media, irrespective of whether they win or lose, and called for stronger measures to protect them.

"All the players are experiencing this, which is very sad. Unfortunately, this is the world where we kind of live in, where people can just go on social media, say whatever they want and not put a face to it," Udvardy told PTI after winning her doubles pre-quarterfinal with Dutch partner Isabelle Haverlag.

"It's terrible and I hope something will be done to protect the players."

The 27-year-old said she has developed a routine of blocking abusive accounts and refusing to engage with their messages, but admitted that the experience becomes particularly difficult after a disappointing result.

"I usually have quite a good routine. I just block and never look at it again. That's the best thing you can do. But when you have a tough match and the first thing you see is these messages, it's mentally very, very draining," she said.