Coco Gauff Faces Racist Backlash After Chair Umpire Upholds Her Mid-Rally Stoppage at China Open

Coco Gauff advanced to the round of 16 at the China Open in Beijing on Monday, beating 16-year-old home favorite Sun Xinran 7-5, 6-1. The match ended with Gauff fielding racist abuse online over a rules call that went her way.

The controversy centered on one point in the first set. Serving at 4-5, Gauff raised her hand mid-rally to stop play, just as Sun was set to return a shot that could have put the teenager two points from the set. Gauff said she noticed the electronic advertising boards ringing the court flicker twice during the point.

"I saw it flicker in the beginning of the point but was not sure if that is what I actually saw," Gauff wrote in an Instagram explanation shared across her social media. "When it flickered again I raised my hands before she hit her shot because this is when I was sure I saw the light flicker and it wasn't my mind doing tricks."

The chair umpire reviewed the sequence on video and ruled the flickering board was a hindrance outside either player's control, comparable to paper blowing onto a court, according to the LA Times and sports.yahoo. The Athletic's James Hansen cited the relevant language in the WTA rulebook, as reported by Bleacher Report: "A let should be called if a player is hindered by an event outside of her control (e.g., ball rolling onto the court, paper blowing onto the court, etc.) during play or her service motion." The point was replayed. Gauff won it, held for 5-5, then dropped just one more game the rest of the match.

To a fan watching live, Gauff stopping play at the exact moment her teenage opponent appeared to hit a winner looks like gamesmanship. Nobody wants to see a seasoned two-time Grand Slam champion halt a crucial point against a 16-year-old just before losing it.

The rule Gauff cited is not something she invented in the moment. Players are permitted to keep playing a point and formally challenge it after the point ends, per the explanation Gauff gave, which multiple outlets including Sky Sports and the BBC corroborated. Had Sun won the point outright, she would have had the identical right to challenge it and request a replay. The chair umpire's video review, an independent check by tennis's own enforcement mechanism, upheld Gauff's version of events.

One outlet, theblast, described the sequence as Gauff having "challenged a call" after play concluded. That framing differs from the account in the LA Times, Sky Sports, the BBC and Bleacher Report, all of which describe Gauff proactively raising her hand to halt the rally in real time, before the chair umpire's review took place, rather than lodging a challenge after the point had already been decided.

Gauff responded directly to the backlash on X, replying to a post that used a racial slur against her. "Hey everyone, you can dislike me or disagree about what happened without being racist," she wrote. "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."

theblast identified the account that posted the slur as @HHuotui, quoting the specific racist language directed at Gauff following her win.

Gauff also addressed Sun directly in her statement, calling her "incredible talent and player" and saying she apologized to Sun at the end of the match, an apology Sun "completely understood," according to Sky Sports and the Mirror. Gauff added that she found it "weird" she was "getting hate for following the rules."

The episode is not isolated. The BBC cited a July report finding female tennis players were subjected to more than 12,000 abusive posts and messages across social media in 2025, with the WTA and World Tennis stating that "collective action" is required to make "significant progress" against the abuse. British player Katie Boulter and Australian player Destanee Aiava have both separately described receiving racist, misogynistic and homophobic messages tied to their matches, per BBC reporting.

Gauff is now set to face Elise Mertens in the round of 16 in Beijing, according to Bleacher Report, as she chases her second WTA title of 2026 after winning the Cincinnati Open in August. No tennis body has announced disciplinary action against any individual poster, and neither the WTA nor the China Open tournament has issued a statement on the abuse as of Monday night.