By Karolos Grohmann
PARIS (Reuters) – American teenager Coco Gauff appealed for an end to gun violence in the United States on Thursday after she beat Italian Martina Trevisan to reach the French Open final.
In a message written on an on-court camera at the end of the match, the 18-year-old wrote “Peace End Gun Violence” followed by a heart.
“I think I am in a mind now like it does not matter,” Gauff said when asked about pressure ahead of Saturday’s final — her first in a Grand Slam — against top seed Iga Swiatek.
“I am going to be happy regardless. My parents are going to love me regardless. So I am going into it as another match,” she said.
“Yeah it’s a Grand Slam final but there are so many things going on in the world right now, especially in the United States, a lot of stuff is happening right now. I am not going to stress over a tennis match.”
The Unites States has experienced a number of firearms violence and mass shootings in recent days.
These include four people fatally shot at a Tulsa medical building in Oklahoma on Wednesday as well as the May 24 attack at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers and an attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York in which 10 people died.
Most Americans support stronger gun laws, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, Additional reporting by Sudipto Ganguly, editing by Ed Osmond)
