The online rabbit hole is dark, and it seems the WTA players keep getting stuck in it. Only a few days after Coco Gauff exposed someone pretending to be her, Jessica Pegula appears to be facing a similar situation. The World No.3 has her own imposter, who has been copying her every move.
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Under the name Jessie Pegula and using the handle JPegula04, a fake account has surfaced on X. The user in question has imitated the bio, description, and even the basic structure of Pegula’s handle from her original account. The fake account in question has 34 posts so far, copying and pasting the World No.3’s posts from the US Open and the Cincinnati Open, among others.
While some dedicated fan pages on X follow the tennis players, having a fake account is a completely different ballgame. Fan pages openly declare their identity, and they share news and photos about the particular player in question, while crediting the original public sources. Fake accounts often use first-person posts to make it look like an original account, which fan pages do not do.
Pegula’s fake account has used first-person posts copied from the World No.3’s original account, which is under the handle JPegula. While some fake accounts even go so far as to obtain blue ticks to legitimize them, Pegula’s fake account does not have one, which can help fans avoid potential scams.
The American’s fake account came to light just days after Coco Gauff’s faced a similar situation. Just like Pegula, there was a fake X account in Gauff’s name that copied her recent US Open posts. The two-time Grand Slam champion herself spotted the account and publicly called it out, warning her fans not to engage with it.
She even clarified that she had never asked for money online and was not in the habit of directly messaging her fans, a tactic often used by fake accounts to dupe unsuspecting fans.
“And while we are here, I will never ask people to send me money,” said Gauff on her X account. “I have been told there are a lot of accounts scamming people pretending to be me. I am not on Telegram or would communicate with people on WhatsApp. Please DO NOT send money to ‘me’ because I promise it’s not me.”
In fact, Iga Swiatek has also faced similar issues online, battling impostors. The threat of fake accounts doubles the issues WTA players face online, who already have to contend with the serious threat from bettors.
Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff Have Faced Bettor Abuse Online
Bettor abuse has been a growing online problem that tennis players, especially WTA players, have to endure. Disgruntled bettors who lose money after certain match results account for the majority of the abusive messages that players receive online, with players like Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff speaking about it.
Pegula faced the brunt of the abuse after losing her match to Lois Boisson at the 2025 French Open. Given the rankings, the American was the obvious favorite in the match, but her loss to a big underdog would naturally have resulted in significant betting losses. Having received numerous abusive and hateful messages, the World No.3 expressed her frustration with the situation on social media.
“These bettors are insane and delusional and I don’t allow DMs and try to remember when to shut my comments off during tournament weeks but they always find a way to my timeline,” said Pegula on Instagram. “This stuff has never really bothered me much but does any other sport deal with this to our level? I’d love to know because it seems to be predominantly tennis? It’s so disturbing.”
Meanwhile, Gauff, has faced her own share of abuse from bettors on social media, but the two-time Major champion has a unique approach to handling it. By her own admission, she uses the abuse as motivation and channels her energy on the tennis court. Even this year, after her semifinal loss to Karolina Muchova at Wimbledon, Gauff was open in her press conference about having already received hateful messages just a few moments after the match, and about how she would tag the very same people in her posts when she won her next title.
The situation has forced the WTA to stand up and take notice, and they have introduced the Threat Matrix. The system acts as a sieve and detects the abusive messages that players get on social media and alerts the appropriate authorities to take action if required.
Notably, in July this year, The WTA and World Tennis have released their second annual report examining online abuse and threats aimed at players across the Tours.
According to data collected through the Signify Group’s Threat Matrix service, 66% of serious abusive posts and comments were successfully removed, while 35 accounts were referred to law enforcement. The report also found that 89% of accounts responsible for serious abuse in 2024 were not seen again in 2025.
WTA and World Tennis jointly stated: “The wellbeing of players and the tennis family is an absolute priority for us and the sport as a whole, and the use of the Threat Matrix service is a key part of our wider work on player welfare. 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.”
The Threat Matrix service covers all WTA and World Tennis players throughout the season. More than 10,000 players and officials are monitored through the AI-powered system, which works alongside human analysts to review and classify content in 57 languages. The system scans open-source activity across X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook.
Specialist investigators and risk assessors then examine the most concerning accounts, collect evidence and coordinate with Tour and venue security teams to help prevent potential real-world harm.