How I Became A Target For Right-Wing Freaks At The Australian Open

Before I went to Melbourne in January to cover the Australian Open for Defector and a couple other publications, I spent some time in New Zealand with my family. We lived there for five years when I was a child, and ever since we moved back to the United States, where I was born, it’s remained an idyllic place to return to. New Zealand also functions as a nice haven these days from winter in the United States both seasonally (it lasts about four months where I live) and politically (14 months and counting). Headlines about tariffs or Trump falling asleep in meetings land a little more softly from an ocean away. The distance can't cushion every blow, though. The news that the U.S. had ordered a military strike on Venezuela, killing more than 80 innocent people in the process, wouldn’t leave my head. When I read that the ICE agent Jonathan Ross had murdered Renee Nicole Good a few days later, I sat on my bed staring aimlessly at the wall for an hour, stewing in dread. I felt deeply embarrassed to go out to a cafe and order food with my American accent, like I needed to wear a sign reading I am from the United States, but I deeply hate what is going on there to assure baristas or cashiers that they weren't serving a cheerleader of this fucked-up regime .

Few journalists were asking American players about the state of their country at the Australian Open, which felt strange given the avalanche of awful news from it, before and during the tournament. The modern tennis professional, on average, weighs in on politics about as often and as deeply as a fourth grader. Still, when something is happening in the world, players tend to face questions about it. The WTA Finals have taken place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the last two years and will again at the end of this season; the country's Public Investment Fund also gets a namedrop in both the ATP and WTA rankings. Though resistance to jumping in bed with a petrostate liberal in its censorship, sexism, and executions has largely faded, participants in the WTA Finals did talk about weighing the financial gain of the move against the moral pitfalls in 2024. Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian players have answered questions aplenty about Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, some Ukrainian players' decision not to shake hands with Russian and Belarusian players, the latter group's ban from Wimbledon in 2022, and the blank flag that's been put next to their names on scoreboards ever since.

After some encouragement from another journalist, I pitched a piece on how American players were feeling about their country to an editor for The Athletic, for whom I'd been doing some work during the tournament. I began asking players questions, and phrased them nervously and vaguely—it felt like a spined creature was clawing its way into my throat from my stomach as I asked them. My regret from the reporting is that I wasn't more direct. Still, I got a variety of responses from eight players that ranged from thoughtful, to specific, to uninterested, to nothing at all. I felt they were interesting for what they were, but also for what they weren't—I could see the outlines of an agent's helping hand in some answers, the fear of antagonizing a strain of fans in some others.