French Open recap: Chaos, comebacks, crowds and curious scheduling at Roland Garros
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Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day five, chaos reigned at Roland Garros with comebacks, crowds and curious scheduling under the sunniest day of the tournament so far — while Coco Gauff got past a name for the future from a tennis nation with a proud history.
At Roland Garros, we have already seen eight comebacks from two sets down in the men's singles draw, ranging from collapses to heroic fightbacks.
For Jakub Menšík, Thursday's second-round loss against Portuguese qualifier Henrique Rocha continued an unwanted trend. Of his last four Grand Slam defeats, three have been after he led by two sets to love; the other came from two sets to one up. While Menšík has more Grand Slam experience than Rocha, he is also two years younger; still only 19, Menšík appears not yet attuned to the mental and physical rhythm of five-set matches.
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He smashed his racket after a bad forehand miss in the fifth set against Rocha, which put his opponent 3-1 up.
In need of a whole comeback category of his own is Alexander Bublik, the mercurial Kazakh who came back from two sets down to win on Thursday for the third time in his career. The No. 9 seed, Alex de Minaur, was his latest victim, and Bublik, who delights in his unpredictability, explained that he had already started thinking about logistics for getting home when he went down 0-2.
'I was checking the tickets already in my head,' he said in a news conference. 'I didn't really care, in a way. I have won, what, 12 or 13 matches on clay this year. Being second round here, it's always like an achievement because I have never won as many matches on clay as I did. So I was a bit tired.
'I told my team, they know it, so it was not like if I lose, I would be upset. No, I would be happy and I would be home today in Monaco at 9pm.'
Bublik then started playing with the carefree attitude of someone whose mind was wandering — but with devastating effect. On set point to win the fourth set, he hit a tweener from the baseline and then nailed a backhand pass up the line.
De Minaur, one of the toughest competitors on the tour, admitted afterwards that he started to get the sense that this wasn't going to be his day. Menšík, who went through a similar experience at Wimbledon last year, can identify with what happened to the Aussie: De Minaur found himself well and truly Bubliked.
Charlie Eccleshare
Remember the name Tereza Valentová of the Czech Republic.
She won the girls' tournament here last year. This year, she won three matches in qualifying and then beat French veteran, Chloe Paquet, coming back from a set down in her first Grand Slam main draw.. That's no easy feat when playing against a home crowd, especially at Roland Garros.
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She ran into the world No. 2, Coco Gauff, on Thursday. That was too tall an order for an 18-year-old who is still lugging textbooks around to tennis tournaments. She was balancing her matches with studying. She's got finals coming up, and another year of school — regular school, not online school (but with this success, that could change).
Valentová is yet another uber-promising Czech player from a country that produces promising prospects on the women's side like no other. She said last week that she didn't think she had the goods to qualify. Her coach thought otherwise.
Gauff wore down Valentová on Thursday, as she so often does to younger players who don't yet have her levels of endurance, beating her 6-3, 6-4.
'It's tennis, you have to run,' Valentova said when it was over.
Walking onto the court, she said she thought Gauff would be '10-times better' than her, but she wasn't, as anyone following the Czech's nascent career might have understood.
She has not let being one of the top talents from the country rush her into playing too many matches after a series of injury setbacks. When she does play, she tends to win.
She played 14 matches in 2022 and 2023, before playing 43 in 2024, winning 38 of them on the ITF World Tennis Tour.
Gauff at a Grand Slam was a proposition from another galaxy in some ways, but like Victoria Mboko — who has reached the third round on her first Grand Slam appearance this week — Valentová's high, sustained win-rate at ITF level (she is 18-6 in 2025) suggests this breakthrough will be sustainable rather than fleeting.
'I can play with her normally and if I improve some things, I can maybe win,' she said of Gauff.
'It's a motivation for me to get better and hopefully I'll play against her many times. I hope as soon as possible.'
Matt Futterman
With the febrile atmosphere on most of the smaller show courts, the sunny weather and the unexpected results all over the grounds, day five was the most engrossing, entertaining and enthralling of the tournament so far.
Except for its most prestigious court.
The comfortable wins for Jessica Pegula, Jannik Sinner and Madison Keys over Ann Li, Richard Gasquet and Katie Boulter were hardly matches to set the pulse racing. Gasquet was at least afforded an emotional farewell to the sport, but even that had a downside. Most spectators felt in need of a rest afterwards, leading to the stadium being all but empty for a match involving the most recent women's Grand Slam champion.
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This couldn't have been in starker contrast to Court Suzanne-Lenglen and Court 14, which were rocking all day thanks to the razzmatazz provided by Arthur Fils, João Fonseca and others.
The Chatrier schedule for Friday doesn't promise a great deal more excitement, but it feels as if that scenario was avoidable. The way the women's draw has fallen, the top half is more loaded than the other, with Iga Świątek, Aryna Sabalenka, Jasmine Paolini, Elena Rybakina and Jeļena Ostapenko all playing on the same day.
But organizers have selected Paolini's match with lucky loser Yuliia Starodubtseva of Ukraine as the third match on Chatrier, ahead of four-time champion Świątek and the indisputable popcorn match of the day, which is Rybakina vs. Ostapenko. Sabalenka will play the other against Marie Bouzková of the Czech Republic, with Holger Rune vs. Quentin Halys and Carlos Alcaraz vs. Damir Džumhur the men's matches.
The scheduling this week has left Chatrier feeling a little bit like the library at a university campus, while everyone else is enjoying themselves at the bar.
Charlie Eccleshare
Let's start with an idea: Portugal should have more elite tennis players.
It has great weather. It produces elite athletes in other sports, notably soccer. There are some lovely clay courts throughout the country.
It has about 11 million people. Not nearly as many as Spain or France or Italy, but nearly double the population of Serbia and triple that of Croatia. Those countries don't exactly lack for top-100 competition.
People in Portugal like tennis. The ATP Tour stop in Estoril packs its stadium, even since it was downgraded to a Challenger Tour event. The country's president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is a tennis fan who makes a point of backing the tournament.
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It still took until May 29, 2025, for Portugal to get two men's players into the third round of the same Grand Slam.
Nuno Borges beat top-10 player Casper Ruud on Wednesday, then Rocha beat Menšík. It was the second time in a week that they had made history. Portugal had never had two players in the second round of a Grand Slam, either.
We're not suggesting Portugal should be creating the next Jannik Sinner. These days, it takes a unicorn to rise to the top of the men's game. But two players winning one match in the same Grand Slam doesn't seem like too tall an order for a country with Portugal's demographics.
Rocha said Thursday it's not a coincidence that it's happening now.
He said he began getting support from the country's tennis federation about six years ago. Borges started working with the federation a couple years back, too.
'We have a great team,' Rocha said. 'We have a fitness coach, psychologist, nutritionists, of course coaches, physios. We have everything we need to be very good players,' he said. 'The three of us were practicing together. It's also very good to always improve with each other.'
Matt Futterman
Tell us what you noticed on the fifth day…
(Top photo of TK: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)
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