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Welcome to the Australian Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day 8, Coco Gauff said RIP to TikTok, Jasmine Paolini had a rough result and Daniil Medvedev took on the net cam…
Coco Gauff says goodbye to TikTok — for now
Coco Gauff may have won her fourth-round match against Belinda Bencic in three sets, but she lost access to TikTok.
The social media app, on which Gauff has over 750,000 followers, went dark early Sunday for American users. The blackout came hours before a federal law calling for its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or otherwise face a ban in the United States came into effect. The app greeted American users with a message: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted.”
“It’s really sad,” Gauff said after her win. “I’ve been on the app since it was called Musical.ly,” she said. The first version of the app, styled Musical.ly, was acquired by ByteDance in August 2018.
Gauff thought she had a workaround: she is in Australia, where no such law exists. She finished her match, looked at her phone, and realized being in Melbourne made no difference. Gauff said TikTok served as an escape and was a form of relaxation. Some people meditate before matches, trying to visualize points and shot patterns, attempting to manifest high performance on the court, Gauff watches TikTok.
More importantly for Gauff, and for tennis, she also posted on TikTok, offering followers a chance to discover the sport in a new way. A fan outside the U.S. who sees a Gauff TikTok or a meme about Challengers and wants to learn more can’t watch tennis highlights except on official channels, and can’t watch much tennis at all without several subscriptions. The way TikTok remixes tennis offers a fascinating point of discovery, but the Grand Slams are particularly restrictive of the footage that fans — and even the players in that footage — can use. Tennis will have to figure that out, and soon.
Gauff hopes that TikTok and the U.S. might work something out too. “I do have a feeling that it will somehow come back,” she said.
But that probably won’t be in time for Tuesday’s quarterfinal against Paula Badosa.
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Matt Futterman
What now for Jack Draper and his hip?
The British No. 15 seed Jack Draper offered a stark reminder of the relentless physicality of modern tennis.
It wasn’t so much that he retired on Sunday, having lost the first two sets against Carlos Alcaraz, but more the sobering revelations he offered in the interview room afterwards.
Draper, who had a disrupted pre-season because of a hip injury before playing three straight five-setters at the Australian Open, was clearly ailing against Alcaraz. Afterwards, he revealed the true extent of his physical issues and the challenge of finding a moment to jump off the tennis hamster wheel to recuperate.
Explaining he had been suffering from tendonitis that then affected his back, Draper said, “I couldn’t walk and it was really difficult.” He added: “I just need to be sensible, because there is no escape from it, especially (when) the tennis schedule is so tight.”
Jack Draper struggled against Carlos Alcaraz after a gruelling opening three rounds. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
As for whether Draper would take a break to heal, he said that the solution to the problem was load management because “there are such short windows in tennis to get your body right”.
Draper isn’t the only one who has struggled physically over the last couple of days, with Arthur Fils, Naomi Osaka, Donna Vekic and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina all either retiring or looking like they had run out of gas.
Draper said he didn’t think his tendonitis would be a long-term problem. But finding time to rest and recuperate is one of tennis’s biggest challenges.
GO DEEPER
‘I don’t find who I am or what I do very impressive’: Jack Draper finds his purpose in pain
Charlie Eccleshare
Jasmine Paolini’s two tough days after six months of soaring
Tennis players rarely have years like the one Jasmine Paolini had in 2024.
She was outside the top 50 in the middle of 2023. In 2024, she won the WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai, one level below a Grand Slam, and reached the French Open and Wimbledon finals. She followed that up by winning Olympic gold with Sara Errani in the women’s doubles and then led Italy to victory in the Billie Jean King Cup.
Though standing at just 5ft 4in (163cm), the world No.4 arrived at the Australian Open with some big ideas.
Then, she had a rough weekend.
Paolini basically imploded against Elina Svitolina on Saturday evening. She cruised through the first set, but then buckled as Svitolina found her rhythm and beat her 2-6, 6-4, 6-0.
On Sunday, she and Errani fell 7-5, 7-5 to the two young Russians, Mirra Andreeva, 17, and Diana Shnaider, 20, in a rematch of the Olympic final.
Last year was three weeks ago. For Paolini this weekend, it felt longer than that.
Matt Futterman
Daniil Medvedev pays a heavy price for a cheap camera
After he smashed his racket into the net cam during his first-round match at the Australian Open, No. 5 seed Daniil Medvedev didn’t expect to pay too much for it.
“The fine is usually for breaking the racquet, and the camera is going to cost some, but I don’t think GoPro is that expensive,” he said in his news conference after beating Thai world No. 418 Kasidit Samrej in five sets.
“What I have to say is the camera was very, very strong, because my racquet didn’t handle the damage, but the camera did,” he said.
Medvedev might now be thinking differently after receiving a $10,000 (£8,217) fine for his actions against Samrej, on top of a $66,000 fine for throwing a racket, being aggressive towards an official and then skipping his media duties after his second-round defeat to American qualifier Learner Tien. Medvedev lost to Tien, 19, in four hours and 49 minutes of largely unbridled frustration, in which he also kicked out at a television camera (not for the first time) and punched his racket bag. Medvedev earned $123,000 for reaching the second round; over half of it will go on his fines.
GO DEEPER
American qualifier Learner Tien beats Daniil Medvedev in stunning Australian Open upset
James Hansen
Shot of the day
Was Ben Shelton on the other end of Cruz Hewitt’s phone?
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Australian Open women’s draw 2025
Tell us what you noticed on the eighth day…
(Top photo of Coco Gauff: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
