American tennis star Coco Gauff shared a heartfelt message on a TV camera lens after winning her match at the Australian Open, mourning the loss of TikTok in the United States. The 20-year-old, who is currently ranked No. 3 in the world, wrote “RIP TikTok USA” and drew a heartbreak emoji following her 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Belinda Bencic.
Gauff’s match finished just an hour after TikTok was removed from prominent app stores in the US on Saturday. The popular social media platform was set to be banned under a US federal law that required its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or face a ban in the country.
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Tennis players often use courtside cameras to share their thoughts after a win, and Gauff took a moment to think before offering her TikTok message in blue ink. This isn’t the first time she has used this platform to express her views. At the French Open in June 2022, she wrote “Peace. End gun violence.” in response to a recent spate of mass shootings in the USA.
Gauff, who won the 2023 US Open, has been a frequent user of TikTok, often mimicking popular trends on the app. She expressed hope that TikTok would survive, acknowledging its importance for small businesses and creators in the United States.
“I feel this is the third or fourth time this has happened. This time it’s just like, ‘Whatever.’ If I wake up and it doesn’t work, fine. I’m done wasting my time figuring it out,” Gauff said earlier during the Australian Open. “I see there’s a new app called RedNote that a lot of people are migrating over to. So I feel, regardless, people are going to be fine because people are always going to migrate to another app.”
She added that she hoped TikTok would survive, calling it “a great thing for a lot of small businesses in our country, and a lot of creators make money on it and have the chance to spread stories. Personally, me, a lot of great stories I’ve heard are from TikTok and connecting with people has been (through) TikTok. I hope it will stay, (but) obviously I don’t know all the security issues and things like that.”
When users opened the TikTok app on Saturday, they were greeted with a pop-up message from the company that prevented them from scrolling on videos. The ban on TikTok in the US has sparked discussions about the app’s security and its ties to the Chinese government.
