Coco Gauff might be on the other side of the world but she wanted to send a message back to the United States Saturday night.
The American tennis star ended her recent streak of losing in the early rounds of Grand Slam events on Saturday, beating Belinda Bencic in three sets to advance to the Australian Open quarterfinals. With the hard-fought 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 win, she moves on to play Paula Badosa for a spot in the semifinals.
After the win, Gauff was asked to write a message on the camera and decided to go with something very topical, especially for people of her generation.
“RIP TikTok USA 💔,” she wrote, in the wake of the social media platform going dark in the United States due to a federal ban that went into effect on Sunday.
“RIP TikTok USA 💔” – Coco Gauff writing on the camera after her win at the Australian Open last night pic.twitter.com/E3IYs1ESv7
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 19, 2025
“Hopefully it comes back. It’s really sad … I love TikTok. It’s like an escape. I honestly do that before matches,” she told reporters afterward. “I guess it’ll force me to read books more, be more of a productive human probably. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”
TikTok owner ByteDance voluntarily shut down the platform in the U.S. hours before a Sunday deadline, following the Supreme Court decision to uphold a federal law that bans it over concerns about ties to China.
President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that he would “issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.” That order could face legal challenges over its ability to actually stop enforcement of a federal law. According to the law, there would need to be “significant progress” towards TikTok’s sale to a non-Chinese company for a 90-day extension to be granted. It does not appear clear that’s happening.
Trump added that he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” but details remained unclear on that. TikTok has long said that selling would be impossible given the nature of their global operations and China signaling that it would block such a sale to begin with.
Sunday afternoon, TikTok announced it was “in the process of restoring service” in the U.S. We’ll see what Monday brings.
