The WTA has offered additional support to Jodie Burrage after she received death threats and online abuse following a first-round defeat at a tournament in India on Tuesday.

Burrage shared a raft of abusive messages sent to her Instagram account after a gruelling 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 defeat by India’s Vaishnavi Adkar at the Chennai Open. The 27-year-old, who was playing her first WTA Tour match since last summer, accompanied the messages with the caption: “Nice welcome back to the tour. I remember why I left.”

It is three years since the WTA – in partnership with Wimbledon, World Tennis and the United States Tennis Association – launched the AI-led Threat Matrix service, which aims to identify and tackle online abuse against players and officials.

A WTA spokesperson said in a statement: “Protecting players and the wider tennis family from online threats and abuse is a key priority for the WTA.…