Ben Shelton is one of the many American tennis players doing well at the 2026 Australian Open. He’s also one of the many American tennis players asked about what it means to celebrate the US right now. | Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

One of the biggest stories coming out of the 2026 Australian Open is how well the American tennis players are doing. Four US women — Amanda Anisimova, Coco Gauff, Iva Jovic, Jessica Pegula — are in the quarterfinals and two men — Ben Shelton and Learner Tien — also made the final eight. (Gauff, Jovic, and Tien lost their quarterfinal matches on Tuesday.) Those accomplishments have led to the other big American story coming out of the Aussie Open: How do US tennis players feel about representing their country at this moment?

In post-match interviews, they’ve been asked, some of them multiple times for clarification, what it means to play under the American flag. Implicitly, these questions are referring to federal agents killing American citizens in Minnesota, or perhaps the increasingly strange and heated threats about acquiring Greenland, or the military intervention in Venezuela and threats to launch military strikes on Iran.

Essentially, reporters are asking: Are you proud to be an American in a moment and time when so many Americans aren’t?

While tennis players may be the first US athletes on a major international stage this year to deal with this attention, they won’t be the last. In two weeks, the Winter Olympics will begin and coincide with the Super Bowl, the most-watched sporting event in the US. Many of those athletes will face the same question about what parts of America they are or aren’t celebrating.

American players are being asked how it feels to be American right now

Country representation can be a big deal in tennis when its governing bodies — the ATP and WTA tour — want it to be. For example, Russian and Belarusian tennis players are currently not allowed to represent their countries on tour and do not have flags next to their names, a decision made in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The intent is to represent neutrality despite the countries’ international aggression toward Ukraine.

Russian and Belarusian players have also,........

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