Serena Williams, Noami Osaka, Coco Gauff, and Others Speak Out

SI's Jon Wertheim shares some of the athletes in tennis speaking out against racial injustice

In the wake of the death of George Floyd, Serena Williams, Noami Osaka, and Coco Gauff have used their platform and celebrity in tennis to speak out against racial injustice and police brutality. SI's Jon Wertheim joined Robin Lundberg to discuss how members of the tennis world are making their voice heard.

Video Transcript:

Robin Lundberg: The sports world, like so many of us, has reacted to the tragic death of George Floyd. For more, I'm joined by SI senior writer Jon Wertheim. Jon, that extends to the tennis community as well. Correct?

Jon Wertheim: It does, absolutely. It's always interesting to see which athletes in situations like this feel the need to speak out and use their platform and which don't. And this is interesting because it's such a global sport. This issue has great resonance for some players and perhaps less for others. But tennis players have been very vocal. And again, I think it's important to say, Robin, this is an individual sport. There's not the infrastructure of team and league. So these athletes are really taking on a bit of personal risk that other athletes might not. But Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff has been very outspoken. Francis Tiafoe. We've seen messages. We've seen tweets. We've seen videos. We've seen Instagram stories. There is a real history in tennis of speaking out, of activism. Martina Navratilova, Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King. And to me, it was really heartening and really interesting to see which players have continued that tradition. But tennis players from the biggest stars, from Serena Williams to lesser players and casual fans haven't heard of - they have been speaking out fairly vocally and this has really been at the forefront of this.