Coco Gauff missed watching US Open match due to ESPN-Charter dispute

The ESPN-Charter dispute disrupted normal watching patterns for millions for a week, and even U.S. tennis champ Coco Gauff was not immune. On her way to winning the U.S. Open and securing her first Grand Slam title, the 19-year-old star wasn’t able to watch one of the matches in the tournament at her hotel.

Reporters asked Gauff for takeaways from one of Jelena Ostapenko’s matches, but she admitted she only saw the scoreline.

“I’m not gonna get into that.. but we can’t watch ESPN at our hotel,” Gauff said. “I saw the scoreline. I didn’t see the match.”

Despite her interrupted broadcast experience, the Atlanta native won the U.S. Open by taking down Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus 2–6, 6–3, and 6–2. It was Gauff’s second Grand Slam tournament finals appearance. As an 18-year-old, she lost in the finals of the 2022 French Open 1–6, 3–6 to Polish player Iga Świątek.

Gauff is currently ranked as the No. 3 women’s tennis player in the world. She was the first American woman to win the U.S. Open under the age of 20 since Serena Williams did it in 1999.

ESPN, Charter end dispute

Disney and Charter ended their carriage dispute, reaching an agreement on Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The dispute ending brings ESPN and ABC back to more than 14 million cable TV customers in the country’s biggest TV markets such as New York and Los Angeles.

The blackout lasted more than a week.

The crux of the dispute centered around the two sides not agreeing on the terms of a new carrier agreement. The nation’s second-largest cable company wants to have consumer products like Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ in its package. The one catch was Spectrum did not want to pay more money for the extra programming.

Charter has agreed to higher rates for Disney’s channels in return for being able to provide Disney+ and ESPN+ streaming to its pay-TV customers. Of note, when Disney releases its direct-to-consumer version of its ESPN cable channel, separate from ESPN+, Charter customers will receive the product.

It’s also a major win for college football fans, who were left scrambling to join Hulu Live or YouTube TV in the first two weeks of the season. Arguably two of the biggest games of Week 2 – No. 20 Ole Miss at No. 24 Tulane (ESPN 2) and No. 11 Texas at No. 3 Alabama – were on Disney channels.

On3’s Pete Nakos contributed to this report.