While getting treatment and preparing for this week’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, Coco Gauff has had the news on in the background almost every day.
Gauff could be forgiven if she’s not up-to-date on everything that’s been happening back in the United States: she is on the road for nearly 11 months a year, often thousands of miles away from her home in Delray Beach, Florida.
But the 21-year-old says she “likes to stay informed” and admits it’s been “tough” waking up to news of harsh immigration crackdowns and the killing of protestors back home.
“Everything going on in the US, obviously I’m not really for it. I don’t think people should be dying in the streets just for existing. I don’t like what’s going on,” Gauff said in Dubai on Sunday, referring to the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by federal agents in Minnesota.
“I think for me, it is tough to sometimes wake up and see something because I do care a lot about our country. I think people think I don’t for some reason, but I do. I’m very proud to be American.
“But I think when you’re from any country, you don’t have to represent the entire values of what’s going on in the leadership. I think there’s a lot of people around there who believe in the things I believe in, and believe in diversity and equality. So, I’m hoping as the future progresses that we can get back to those values.”
Activism runs in Gauff’s DNA. Her maternal grandmother Yvonne Lee Odom helped desegregate public schools in Delray Beach in the 1960s, and she has passed on her experiences and values to Gauff from a young age.
For a long time, Gauff has shunned the “shut up and dribble” rhetoric that has been thrown at athletes who dare to speak out on social and political matters.
At 16, she stood in a Black Lives Matter rally in her home town and gave a stirring speech in which she urged people to take action, exercise their right to vote, and speak up for social justice.
“The silence of the good people is worse than the brutality of the bad people,” she said that day, quoting Martin Luther King Jr, as her grandmother watched.
Gauff has also spoken out against the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, telling The National News in an interview two years ago, “It’s important for us as privileged civilians to do our research and just continuing to demand our leaders to make change and I will never not advocate for that.”
The two-time grand slam champion is often asked to weigh in on social and political issues, and insists she will never shy away from answering them.
“I never felt torn when I’m asked a question because it is relevant. If you’re asking me, I’ll going to tell you how I feel,” she said on Sunday.
“I think a lot of people on social media, on the other hand, like to say to stay out of politics, stay out of the things that are going on.
“You’re going to be asked these things in press. People want to hear our opinion on it. Some players choose to say ‘no comment’, which is also completely in their right. I understand that. Some prefer to state their opinion.
“I think the biggest thing I hate is when people say, ‘stay out of it’, when we’re being asked it. If you ask me, I’m going to give you my honest answer.
“When I’m asked, I have no problems. Because I’ve lived this. My grandma literally is an activist. This is literally my life. So I’m OK answering tough questions.”
Gauff, the world No 5, will kick off her Dubai campaign against Jelena Ostapenko or Anna Kalinskaya on Tuesday.
