Like many people across the world, including myself, eyes were on the exciting U.S. Open tennis tournament this year. I found myself glued to my chair for many days, watching the highly anticipated matchups of 19-year-old Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka, and Novak Djokovic chasing his 24th Grand Slam title. But as it turns out, it wasn’t just me glued to my seat, but many other people at the stadium — perhaps more literally.
Amidst the U.S. Open’s matches last Thursday, climate change protesters took to the stands to advertise their message of “ending fossil fuel emissions.” During the semi-final match between Coco Gauff and Karolína Muchová, a 50-minute delay occurred as environmental activists caused a disruption, with one activist gluing his feet to the ground in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Protesting in sports has been more regular as of the last few decades than ever before, with many national and global events being subject to protestors, the majority of which come from a climate change organization or individuals driven by their own climate change perspectives. Yet it is tennis that is receiving the brunt of the protests as of late due to its affiliation of being a “wealthy-people’s sport.”
Protestors claimed that the sport of tennis has had a negative impact on the environment, as protests have ramped up at tennis courts over the past year. In August in Washington, D.C., about a dozen people participated in throwing tennis balls, chanting and holding signs protesting against fossil fuel emissions. Earlier in July at Wimbledon, two matches were interrupted by environmental activists who jumped out of the stands, scattering orange confetti on the court. Back in June, a climate activist jumped onto the court and tried to glue herself to the net at the French Open.
The protestors this time around cited their reasoning for these efforts as “desperation.” Yet, it is interesting to wonder if these actions are truly helping or harming their case. Outside of the sports realm, many climate activists have thrown soup and paint at priceless art pieces across the globe, glued themselves to roads and chained themselves to trees. While their acts have certainly garnered the media they are looking to draw important attention to, the public reaction has been less than favorable.
At the U.S. Open, crowds booed for periods of time at the climate change protestors, eager to resume the match between Gauff and Muchová.
In terms of criminal charges, 35-year-old Gregory Schwedock was arrested and charged with criminal trespass, while 50-year-old Sayak Mukhopadhyay was charged with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. For police and museums across the globe dealing with the influx of climate change protests, sentencing has become stricter.
While Gauff didn’t seem to take offense to the protests, she acknowledged that while the protests happened during an unfortunate time in the match, as she was up on Muchová, she “couldn’t really get upset at [the protestors]” for their message. As a fan, it’s a really interesting conundrum to try and decide whether or not you’re in favor or opposed to these kinds of protests. On one hand, they disrupt the game, ruin the momentum and ultimately seem to upset people in the moment, even more than if they went another route to spread their message. It almost seems counterintuitive for the protestors to attempt such a thing at these events because of the target audience of these events. The extremely wealthy that flock to these events seem like they, on paper, would be the perfect person to discuss the issue with and call for support. However, the wealthy people in this case have shown to have little empathy for these protests, staying silent and ignoring them as a whole.
On the other hand, you could say that the protestors did little wrong. The message of climate change and the horrid heat at the U.S. Open causing a fan to faint and court temperatures to be 45 degrees higher than normal is a serious crisis that has to be addressed. If the athletes are okay with the message at the end of the day, we should be too. I think it’s okay to be conflicted at the end of the day. I myself wasn’t too happy to have my television feed cut out for 50 minutes, patiently waiting to see if Gauff would make it to the finals.
I think I would’ve been even more upset if I was there in person, spending tons of money and time to be there. But, at the same time, I can recognize the importance of the message, even if the methods the protestors chose to go about preaching were the wrong ones.
But hey, at the end of the day, the match between Gauff and Muchová was pretty amazing. Even if we had to wait a little longer to see it all through.
