Roland Garros loves women’s tennis—just not after 7pm
Roland Garros Week 1
The first week of Roland Garros is fini. If you don’t know that’s French for “finished.” While Ball Boy serves as a tennis pop culture hub, it can also replace your Duolingo subscription.
The opening week of the tournament saw a lot of drama in the French capital with first round upsets, misogyny , and an American invasion we haven’t seen since the likes of D-Day.
In this post, I’ll cover Roland Garros week one’s:
☝️ Biggest Come Up
🥩 Biggest Beef
🫤 Biggest Flop
😢 Biggest Loser
🏆 Biggest Winner
☝️ Biggest Come Up
Hailey Baptiste
The 23-year-old American broke through this year reaching the fourth round of the tournament. She defeated 23rd seed Beatriz Haddad Maia, Nao Hibino, and Jessica Bouzas Maneiro before losing to fellow American, Madison Keys.
Baptiste turned pro in 2019 and has been around the professional circuit, but never in the spotlight until now. Baptiste had 21 aces throughout the tournament— the highest in the women’s singles category and displayed a dynamic and aggressive playing style. She is one of the young players solidifying the argument tennis now requires a deeper athleticism, strength, and adaptability in the face of steep competition everywhere you look.
One of the things that stood out to me about Baptiste was her mental toughness, most likely stemming from her support system. Franklin Tiafoe, brother of No. 15 Frances Tiafoe, and Eric Hechtman, former coach of Venus Williams sit in her coaching box. Baptiste’s also has besties like Coco Gauff and Frances Tiafoe to support her on tour. Of her relationship with Frances, Baptiste said “He's always a huge inspiration to me. We grew up together, and his family is like my own.”
🥩 Biggest Beef
Arthur Fils and Jaume Munar
Earlier in the tournament, Frenchman and burgeoning sex symbol, No. 14 Arthur Fils, made it to the second round to play Spaniard, Jaume Munar, before withdrawing from the tournament from a back injury. The match was electric as French fans went ballistic for Fils causing Munar to complain about the crowd after losing the match. Munar said the French crowd was “disrespectful” and “a circus” along with hinting Fils was faking his injury during their match. Fils clapped back and told Munar to toughen up and reminded him rowdy crowds were a part of tennis.
When Fils won the match, he quickly took his shirt off and threw it in the crowd.
🫤 Biggest Flop
Roland Garros Scheduling
According to BBC, “Not since 2023 has a women's singles match occupied the primetime night session slot on Court Philippe Chatrier—a run stretching to 19 successive matches. In fact, since the tournament introduced night sessions in 2021, only four matches have been from the women's draw.”
The French Tennis Federation’s (FFT) President defended the scheduling by saying “Sometimes for the night session, we need to put the better match, we think could be for the spectators.”
On Sunday, all the women’s matches were played by top 20 players, three out of four went to nail-biting three sets and two of them with tie breaks. These all started before 1pm EST in the United States, meaning if you were trying to watch on the Western half of United States or in Asia, you would have to wake up at ungodly hours to watch great women matches. Instead, the Roland Garros schedulers decided to prioritize Tiafoe playing an unranked player and No. 8 Lorenzo Musetti play No. 10 Holger Rune for primetime.
The only player to speak up about this (and former Ball Boy recap winner) is Ons Jabeur who said, "I hope whoever is making the decision, I don't think they have daughters, because I don't think they want to treat their daughters like this. It's a bit ironic. They don't show women's sport, they don't show women's tennis, and then they ask the question, yeah, but mostly they [viewers] watch men. Of course they watch men more because you show men more. Everything goes together,” according to BBC.
Naomi Osaka’s coach and tennis influencer, Patrick Mouratoglou, gave a terrible opinion on the subject via Instagram saying, “To the people who complain there are no women’s match in night session, I think it’s unfair to Roland Garros. There is more exposure to day matches than night matches because it’s on national TV. Audience is huge compared to the platforms (?) It’s better for women’s tennis to be on the day during at night.”
He continued by doubling down and saying as a tournament director you have to think about the “business” of the tournament. Lastly, he said fans want to pay to see a superstar like Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic, not Iga Swiatek (“it’s not the same”).
Świątek has 22 singles titles, including five Grand Slam wins—four of which are from Roland Garros. Alcaraz has 19 singles titles along with four Grand Slam wins.
😢 Biggest Loser(s)
First-round knockouts
RG was full of upsets in the first round. Players like No. 9 Emma Navarro, No. 11 Daniil Medvedev, and No. 4 Taylor Fritz were all knocked out on the first day of the tournament.
Medvedev and Fritz had particularly easy pockets of the bracket. Fritz would’ve played Tiafoe in the fourth round. Medvedev would’ve probably made it to the fourth round to play Djokovic and possibly the semifinal. I’m sure they’re kicking themselves at home right now (with all their millions of dollars).
It’s specifically devastating for Navarro, who I believe would’ve had a more secure path to the semifinals playing American teammates like Baptiste and Keys—both beatable players for Navarro in my humble opinion.
🏆 Biggest Winner
Alexander Bublik
It really pains me to say this, but ol’ neckbeard defeated No. 5 Jack Draper in the fourth round and Alex de Minaur when he was two sets down, proving he’s truly a wildcard, a dark horse, a black sheep of a player.
I was super nervous about Draper playing Bublik. Even though Draper had a great tournament and played mostly lights out up until the fourth round, Bublik is an X factor that can regretfully beat anyone at any time. Bublik executed 37 drop shots during the match and had Draper on skates pretty much the whole match. When Bublik hit a short shot, Draper would give his trademark crazy eyes and have to sprint across the court.
The win against Draper is the biggest win of his career and he became the first male player representing Kazakhstan to advance to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam in the Open Era. Bublik will play No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals.
🎤 Shoutouts
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