Coco Gauff opens French Open with win after gaffe with rackets
PARIS — Coco Gauff caused a brief and amusing delay at the French Open on Tuesday when she stepped onto Court Philippe-Chatrier without her rackets.
Gauff looked confused before a ball boy ran out minutes later carrying her pack of rackets.
“That’s better,” said the court announcer, drawing laughter, applause and smiles from the crowd in the tournament’s main stadium.
Despite the mix-up, No. 2-seeded Gauff went on to defeat Australia’s Olivia Gadecki 6-2, 6-2 in her opening match.
The American jokingly blamed her coach for the missing rackets.
“Honestly, as long as I’ve been on tour, my coach has always put the rackets in the bag before the match because he’s very superstitious,” she said. “I’m blaming it on my coach. It’s OK.”
Gauff later poked fun at herself on social media, posting an image of a French Open to-do list to X with “put tennis rackets in bag” unchecked along with the caption, “oops, forgot the last one.”
oops, forgot the last one pic.twitter.com/ajqcgFg6mn
— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) May 27, 2025
Gadecki also found humor in the incident.
“Now that I think about it, it seems like that was the only way I was going to win the match,” she said about Gauff’s empty-handed arrival. “It was a funny little incident.”
Gauff was a 2022 finalist at Roland-Garros and is among the title contenders again.
Elsewhere in the women’s bracket Tuesday, American No. 3 seed Jessica Pegula carved out a comfortable 6-2, 6-4 victory over Romanian Anca Todoni to advance to the second round.
Also, former French Open runner-up Sofia Kenin eased past Frenchwoman Varvara Gracheva 6-3, 6-1 and Russian 6-seed Mirra Andreeva defeated Spain’s Cristina Bucsa 6-4, 6-3.
Meanwhile, Polish 25-seed Magdalena Frech defeated Tunisia’s former Wimbledon and US Open runner-up Ons Jabeur 7-6 (4), 6-0.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.