The quarterfinal encounter between Coco Gauff and Paula Badosa just ended at the Rod Laver Arena. But guess what? It wasn’t presented to American audiences by ESPN. The infamous broadcaster is at it again, snubbing the most crucial Australian Open match for college football this time, leaving tennis lovers out in the cold. Previously, a similar incident happened at the start of the Major when Tommy Paul registered a thrilling five-set victory over Aussie Christopher O’Connell. That contest was also skipped for televised coverage, much to fans’ dismay.

Badosa and Gauff’s QF match kicked off the second week of the Australian Open. The former World No.2, Badosa, managed to upset the 20-year-old young American as she made it into the last four. The battle could have been intense but the Spaniard didn’t give too many chances to Gauff. Finally, she sealed her place in the semis with a score line of 7-5, 6-4.

With the win against Gauff, Badosa made it to her first Grand Slam semifinal. Not to mention, she also broke the 2023 US Open winner’s unbeaten winning streak this season. After an emphatic victory, she said in a post-match interview, “For me, this is a dream come true.” as reported by Tennis.com on Monday. Before this QF match, the current World No.11 had narrowly missed out on entering the SF round of a Major on two occasions. Most recently, she lost to Emma Navarro in the quarterfinal of the US Open last year.

This encounter was clearly a shocker for Coco Gauff‘s fans as they were expecting her to advance further. But even if it was a loss, tennis enthusiasts hated to have missed their opportunity to root for their homegrown star. Complaining fans too to social media soon after discovering ESPN’s lapse.

ESPN makes fans angry as they fail to broadcast Coco Gauff vs. Paula Badosa QF battle

At the start of the tournament, ESPN committed to offer all the tennis action from down under across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN+ from all the 15 courts. With the likes of John McEnroe, Rennae Stubbs, and Chris McKendry, the broadcaster also had a heavyweight line-up of commentators. But it seems the reality has been far from satisfactory for viewers back at home.

On Monday, when Coco Gauff was fighting it out against Badosa at the Rod Laver Arena, fans found themselves witnessing the spectacle of a gridiron instead of a blue court. Apparently, they failed to watch the QF battle between the two WTA stars on ESPN’s channels. Here’s what one user wrote on X.

• ESPN not showing the Australian open quarterfinals. Coco gauff is literally playing right now. BOOOOOOO @espn

Other users also raised this point while criticizing ESPN for snubbing a key QF match. They couldn’t believe a major broadcaster was doing this.

• ESPN need to get their s**t together why are we not broadcasting this Round of 16 Australian Open match?
• ESPN couldn’t offer one of their million channels to air the Australian Open over the 30 different angles of the CFB Championship?

One fan pointed out that ESPN’s priority was to air College Football matches instead of the Australian Open on a Monday. And that’s the reason Gauff v Badosa wasn’t available on any channel.

• Be nice if ESPN had the Australian open on one of the 5 regular channels before 11:30pm tonight?? CFP game on all channels!! Tha f??

Meanwhile, one user took a jab at ESPN, while also revealing what they did while not being able to watch the first QF match of the 2025 Australian Open encounter.

• Really wish ESPN would have left one channel open for the Australian Open so I could watch the Gauff-Badosa match. I’ve got The Office on, which isn’t a bad second option!

But this isn’t the first time ESPN has faced the wrath of tennis lovers. Remember when it did something similar during the contest between Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe at the 2022 Australian Open? That R64 match was also not made available for viewers. Going into the second and final week of the first Major down under, this season, it will be intriguing to see how the overall experience turns out. Hopefully, ESPN will now prevent making such blunders, for fans’ sake – but you never know!