Coco Gauff has said she has been racially abused on social media following an incident in her win over Sun Xinran at the China Open. The world No 4 won 7-5 6-1 against the 16-year-old from China to progress to the last 16 in Beijing. Gauff was serving to stay in the first set at 4-5 when Sun thought she had hit a winner, but the American had already raised her hand to stop the point as a light in the side panels around the court was flickering.
Gauff took the next three points to hold for 5-5, and then dropped just one more game in the match. The 22-year-old tried to explain the situation on X, saying: "It was an unfortunate situation but it is out of my control. "Xinran is incredible talent and player, I apologised for the situation at the end of the match and she completely understood." Gauff then responded to a racist reply to her post by saying: "Hey everyone, you can dislike me or disagree about what happened without being racist.
"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."
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