American tennis star Coco Gauff wrote “RIP TikTok USA” on the TV camera lens shortly after winning her match at the Australian Open to advance to the quarterfinals, depicting her heartbreak and mourning the loss of the TikTok app after returning home. is.
Gauff's 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Belinda Bencic at the Grand Slam tournament's main stadium ended in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon local time. It came about an hour after TikTok was no longer found on prominent app stores on Saturday. US.
Tennis players at many tournaments are often given a pen after their victory, allowing them to share their favorite impressions through the lens of a courtside camera.
In this case, Gauff paused, thought, and said, “I think I'll go with this,” before offering a TikTok message in blue ink.
After reaching her first Grand Slam final as a teenager at the French Open in June 2022, Gauff wrote in marker, referencing the recent spate of mass shootings in the United States at the time. Let's end gun violence. ”
Gauff, now 20 years old, is one of the top athletes in the sport.
She won the 2023 US Open and is currently No. 3 in the rankings.
Gauff frequently posts on TikTok and often imitates popular trends.
“I think this is the third or fourth time something like this has happened. This time I'm like, 'Anything goes.' If you wake up and it doesn't work out, that's okay. It's a waste of time to think about that,” Gauff said during the Australian Open. “There's a new app called RedNote and a lot of people seem to be moving to it. So I feel like it's okay because people always move to different apps anyway.”
She further added that she hopes TikTok continues, saying that TikTok is “a great thing for a lot of small businesses in our country, and a lot of creators have the opportunity to make money on TikTok and get their stories out there.” ” he said. For me personally, a lot of the great stories I've heard are from TikTok, and it's[through]TikTok that I connect with people. I hope it stays that way, (but) obviously I don't know all the security issues and things like that. ”
A U.S. federal law banning popular social media platforms was scheduled to go into effect.
Apple and Google's app stores are prohibited from offering TikTok under a law that requires China-based parent company ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban in the United States.
When users opened the TikTok app, they saw a pop-up message from the company that prevented them from scrolling through the videos.
“I heard about it,” Belarusian No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion in Melbourne, said after Sunday's win.
“This is not something we can control. I love TikTok, so I hope they understand that.”