Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
This is the summer of Coco Gauff.
I know Labor Day is supposed to signify the social ending of the summer season, but Coco Gauff won the U.S. Open Women’s Singles Championship, and she was the fourth Black woman to do it since 1999.
Before Gauff, the last three American U.S. Open champions were Black women — Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Sloane Stephens. And now, add Coco Gauff to that list.
It’s worth noting that the Williams sisters have multiple wins between them in that 20-year span.
People keep mistakenly bringing up Naomi Osaka in this discussion, and I’d like to note that while we also celebrate her Black Girl Magic as well, Naomi plays for Japan when she competes, not the United States, and in this discussion, we are referencing U.S. winners.
Coco Gauff is the first American teenage tennis player to win the U.S. Open Women’s Singles since Serena Williams did it in 1999.
Coco didn’t just win the U.S. Open; she ran a clinic on both tennis and life as a Black woman.
She schooled her opponents. She played hard, and she played fast.
She advocated for herself on the court in an example of implicit anti-Black bias in American sports.
And when she gave her victory speech after she was presented with her prize, she addressed her haters.
“Honestly, thank you to the people who didn’t believe in me…,” she said. “… month ago, I won a 500 title, and people said I would stop at that. Two weeks ago, I won a 1000 title, and people were saying that was the biggest it was going to get.
“So three weeks later,…
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