Overview
- Following her first-round Wimbledon defeat, Burrage said she has stopped checking her phone to shield herself from online harassment
- She revealed that roughly half of the abusive messages target her body image, including insults conveyed with pig emojis
- Burrage blamed many threats on disappointed gamblers and called for user IDs to be linked to accounts to deter offenders
- A June WTA/ITF report using AI flagged 8,000 abusive messages aimed at 458 players and found 40% originated from gamblers
- Tennis authorities are urging betting companies to suspend punters who send abuse, but no industry-wide policy has yet been adopted