Coco Gauff is right to put her well-being and dignity first

Reported by MS NOW. The paragraphs below are the opening of that article, reproduced word for word — not a summary, and not the whole piece.

This generation of Black players is developing its own tactics for responding to racism.

Coco Gauff withdrew from the Wuhan Open, the World Tennis Association’s last major tournament of the year, days after she said she was the target of an “insane” number of racist taunts online following a win in the China Open against a Chinese favorite, Sun Xinran. At issue was Gauff halting play in the middle of a point, as the rules allow , when she was distracted by an electronic billboard courtside that she said started flickering.

Gauff didn’t describe the racist abuse she says she got or say it was why she withdrew from a tournament in the same country, but she did tell reporters she’d been exhausted since the controversy over the earlier match. On X, she not only decried the racist abuse but defended her integrity: “hey everyone, you can dislike me or disagree about what happened without being racist . the amount of racist comments/dms I’ve received in the last few hours is insane. Lastly, I’m not a cheater or a thief.”

As the defending Wuhan champion, Gauff’s No. 4 world ranking will dip, which could affect future tournament seeding, prize money and endorsements, which suggests she could not have taken her decision to skip the tournament lightly.

How much is too much racist abuse for young athletes to endure? The obvious answer is that any amount should be considered too much and that athletes shouldn’t be abused in such a way at all, but some fans, leagues and social media platforms haven’t gotten the memo. The result is that a new generation of Black players is developing its own tactics for responding to racism.