Coco Gauff is a force to be reckoned with on the tennis court. She’s won over 10 titles in her sport at just 22 years old, including her first French Open singles title last year. So when Gauff, a brand ambassador for Miu Miu since 2025, posted Instagram photos from the brand’s spring campaign, I expected people to like the post and move on.
Maybe, if so inclined, commenters could have marveled at the Vivant leather bag full of tennis balls sitting next to Gauff on the court, which costs over $4,000.
But that’s not what happened. Critics hopped on X to crack cruel jokes about Gauff’s hairstyle for the photoshoot: a natural, pulled-back bun. One post, “They got Coco looking like Ruby Bridges,” was viewed over 1 million times.
I’m happy to report that plenty of social media users jumped to Gauff’s defense on TikTok, Instagram, and through an outpouring of think pieces.
Still, the scuffle left a bad taste in my mouth, and I’m (yet again) wondering why we needed to defend her in the first place for simply wearing her natural hair.
Let’s make one thing clear: Gauff’s hair in the photoshoot is still styled, just not the way the online sphere expects Black women to be styled. We feel the pressure to look “put together” whenever we step out of the house for any occasion where a camera is involved, which usually translates to having a full face of glam makeup and hair braided down at the salon.
Would the critics have ripped into Gauff if she endured the painstaking process of slicking down her hair with gel and swooping her edges perfectly?
It’s perfectly fine for Black women to express themselves with wigs and extensions—I love a cute knotless braids moment when I leave the braiding shop—and it should also be perfectly fine for Black women to sport their natural hair, no matter the texture, without a gelled, slicked-back style.
When I look at Gauff in the photoshoot, I see the embodiment of the sporty-cute aesthetic. I see an athlete. I see valuable representation that is all the more vital in 2026, when people still feel comfortable only linking natural hair to the Civil Rights Era.
I remember my own days in my school lacrosse club, running back and forth and sweating in the hot sun. I didn’t care about what my hair looked like when I stepped back into the locker room to change; I only cared that I was comfortable.
Zooming out, the conversation reflects the way the world fixates on Black women’s physical appearance even when we are achieving monumental things in the public eye. I believe we’re too diverse to be judged through the lens of a one-size-fits-all standard.
If anything, we should be proud that Gauff is part of a long legacy of Black tennis athletes embracing their coils and curls—from the iconic white beads worn by the Williams sisters in the ‘90s to the loose natural curls Naomi Osaka accessorized with pearls and a Nike visor.
And I hope all the Black girls and women who saw those photos feel that pride, too.