Female tennis players faced more than 12,000 abusive posts and messages on social media throughout 2025, according to the latest annual report from the WTA and World Tennis. The figures, drawn from Signify Group’s Threat Matrix monitoring service, reveal that the overall volume of harassment remained stubbornly similar to the previous year. Yet beneath the headline numbers lie some encouraging developments in how the sport is fighting back against a problem that continues to take a heavy toll on athletes.
The Threat Matrix system, which combines artificial intelligence with human analysts fluent in 57 languages, scanned more than 1.2 million posts and comments across major platforms including X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook. Of those, 3,726 were classified as serious abuse — encompassing violent threats, sexual harassment, racist attacks, and other targeted harm. While the raw scale remains daunting, the report highlights tangible results from collaborative intervention. Sixty-six percent of serious abusive content was successfully removed, and 35 accounts connected to just 12 individuals — including one verified network — were escalated to law enforcement agencies.
Investigators fully or partially identified 68 abusive accounts, up from 39 the year before. Even more promising, 89 percent of those responsible for serious abuse in 2024 did not surface again in 2025. A smaller group of prolific offenders continued to drive much of the problem: just 9 percent of abusive accounts were behind 87 percent of the highest-concern incidents, and prolific users accounted for 49 percent of all detected abuse, up from 43 percent previously. These repeat offenders were also more likely to post especially disturbing content involving violence, sexual threats, or attacks on players’ families.
One persistent driver stands out in the data. Angry gamblers were linked to 42 percent of verified abuse — a slight increase in their share compared to some earlier measurements — and a striking 59 percent of serious cases. This connection between betting frustrations and online vitriol has been a recurring theme, prompting the WTA and World Tennis to press gambling operators for greater accountability. Earlier this month, Fanatics Sportsbook became the first major betting company to integrate tools like Threat Matrix through its Bad Actor Program, a move the governing bodies hope others will follow.
Players have long described the personal damage these attacks inflict. Britain’s Katie Boulter, for instance, revealed she received death threats, and many of her peers have pushed for stronger measures such as identity verification on social media platforms. In a joint statement, the WTA Player Board put the issue plainly: “The abuse directed at players online is unacceptable. While it comes from a relatively small number of accounts, its impact can be significant.”
The board continued: “It’s reassuring to know the WTA and World Tennis are taking this seriously, supporting players and making it clear that this kind of behaviour isn’t acceptable. The progress highlighted in this report demonstrates the value of working collaboratively across the sport and with our partners to identify abusive behaviour, support players and take meaningful action against those responsible.”
The governing bodies echoed this sentiment in their own release, stressing that player wellbeing sits at the heart of their efforts. “Insight from this report is crucial to helping us broaden our knowledge of the issue and take decisive action to protect victims of vile online abuse by punishing those responsible,” they stated. “While today’s findings illustrate the effectiveness of that action to date, further significant progress requires collective action from social media companies, law enforcement, governing bodies and the gambling industry, and we will continue to proactively advocate for that.”
The Threat Matrix initiative now covers all WTA and World Tennis players for the full season, along with more than 10,000 players and officials overall. Specialist investigators work alongside tournament security to turn digital flags into real-world protections, aiming to prevent harassment from spilling into physical danger. Twenty-six especially active accounts on X and Instagram — each responsible for more than 30 abusive messages — were taken down, accounting for 21 percent of the year’s total abuse.
On the men’s side, a separate AI-driven system has shown its own muscle, blocking 162,000 abusive posts over the course of a year. Together, these parallel efforts suggest that technology, when paired with human oversight and cross-industry cooperation, can move the needle even if the underlying culture of toxicity proves harder to shift.
Still, the report serves as both validation and a call to arms. The small cadre of perpetrators creates outsized harm, but the fact that most serious offenders from the prior year stayed away indicates that accountability measures are registering. The challenge now is expanding that success — through deeper involvement from betting companies, faster responses from tech platforms, and sustained pressure from law enforcement.
Tennis has made meaningful strides in shining a light on this dark corner of the sport and building systems to combat it. The 2025 data shows that persistence and partnership can produce results, even as the volume of abuse refuses to vanish. For players already under immense competitive pressure, every reduction in online venom represents a step toward protecting their mental health and allowing them to focus on the game they love. The coming years will test whether the broader ecosystem — from Silicon Valley to sportsbooks — is willing to match the sport’s commitment.
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