MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) 鈥� American tennis star mourned the back home, writing on a TV camera lens 鈥淩IP TikTok USA鈥� and drawing a broken heart right after winning a match at the to reach the quarterfinals.
Gauff's 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Belinda Bencic in the Grand Slam tournament's main stadium finished on Sunday afternoon local time in Melbourne 鈥� about an hour after TikTok could no longer be found on prominent app stores on Saturday in the United States.
鈥淚 could not access it after my match. I honestly thought I would be able to get away with it because I was in Australia,鈥� Gauff said at her news conference. 鈥淗opefully it comes back. ... It鈥檚 really sad. I鈥檝e been on the app since it was called Musical.ly. I love TikTok. It鈥檚 like an escape. I honestly do that before matches. I guess it will force me to read books more 鈥� be more of a productive human, probably. Maybe it鈥檚 a blessing in disguise."
Tennis players at many tournaments often are handed a pen after a win so they can deliver whatever thoughts they want via the lens of a courtside camera. In this case, Gauff paused a bit to think and said, 鈥淚 think I'm going to go with this one,鈥� before offering her TikTok message in blue ink.
At the French Open in June 2022, after reaching her first Grand Slam final as a teenager, Gauff referred to a recent spate of mass shootings in the U.S. at the time and wrote: 鈥淧eace. End gun violence.鈥�
Now 20, Gauff is one of the top players in her sport. and is currently ranked No. 3.
Gauff frequently has posted on TikTok, often mimicking popular trends.
鈥淚 feel this is the third or fourth time this has happened. This time it鈥檚 just like, 鈥榃hatever.鈥� If I wake up and it doesn鈥檛 work, fine. I鈥檓 done wasting my time figuring it out,鈥� Gauff said earlier during the Australian Open. 鈥淚 see there鈥檚 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.鈥�
She added that she hoped TikTok would survive, calling it 鈥渁 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鈥檝e heard are from TikTok and connecting with people has been (through) TikTok. I hope it will stay, (but) obviously I don鈥檛 know all the security issues and things like that.鈥�
said Sunday in a post on his Truth Social account that he plans to issue an executive order that would give TikTok鈥檚 China-based parent company, ByteDance, more time to find an approved buyer. TikTok later said it鈥檚 鈥渋n the process鈥� of restoring service to users in the U.S.
The company鈥檚 app was removed from prominent app stores, including the ones operated by Apple and Google, while its website told users that the short-form video platform was no longer available. The blackout began just hours before a U.S. federal law banning TikTok was scheduled to go into effect.
Apple and Google app stores were prohibited from offering TikTok under the law that required ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban in the U.S.
鈥淚 heard about that (the TikTok ban),鈥� No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, a Belarusian who is the two-time defending champion in Melbourne, said after her victory Sunday. 鈥淭his is not something we can control, and I hope they鈥檙e going to figure it out, because I love TikTok.鈥�
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AP tennis:
Howard Fendrich, The Associated Press
