diff --git a/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/tomcat/tomcat-9.0/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/tomcat9/WebappClassLoaderInstrumentation.java b/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/tomcat/tomcat-9.0/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/tomcat9/WebappClassLoaderInstrumentation.java
index ccd92cba35c..83d86feb898 100644
--- a/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/tomcat/tomcat-9.0/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/tomcat9/WebappClassLoaderInstrumentation.java
+++ b/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/tomcat/tomcat-9.0/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/tomcat9/WebappClassLoaderInstrumentation.java
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ public static void onContextAvailable(
         @Advice.This final WebappClassLoaderBase classLoader,
         @Advice.Argument(0) final WebResourceRoot webResourceRoot) {
       // at this moment we have the context set in this classloader, hence its name
-      final Context context = webResourceRoot.getContext();
+      final Context context = webResourceRoot != null ? webResourceRoot.getContext() : null;
       if (context == null) {
         return;
       }