American tennis star Coco Gauff expressed her sadness over TikTok’s removal from app stores in the U.S. by writing “RIP TikTok USA” with a broken heart on a TV camera lens after her Australian Open victory.
Gauff defeated Belinda Bencic 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 on Sunday afternoon in Melbourne, just an hour after the app disappeared from major app stores in the U.S.
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The win secured her a spot in the tournament’s quarterfinals, according to the Associated Press. Tennis players often use a pen to share messages on courtside camera lenses after wins.
Following her latest victory, Gauff paused before writing her TikTok tribute, saying, “I think I’m going to go with this one.”
At the 2022 French Open, Gauff touched on social issues by writing “Peace. End gun violence” after reaching her first Grand Slam final as a teenager, referencing recent U.S. mass shootings.
At 20, Gauff is one of tennis’s top players, currently ranked No. 3 and the 2023 U.S. Open champion. A frequent TikTok user, she often engages with popular trends on the platform.
“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.”
A U.S. federal law aimed at banning TikTok required its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or face removal from the country.
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As a result, Apple and Google app stores are now prohibited from offering TikTok. TikTok users were met with a pop-up message that blocked them from scrolling through videos when they opened the app.
