French Open takeaways: Two thrilling finals, the best shots and the funniest moments

New York Times

4 hours ago

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.
This week, the French Open concluded with two incredible finals. Coco Gauff beat Aryna Sabalenka in a wind-buffeted thriller, before Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner delivered five hours and 30 minutes of tennis psychodrama in one of the greatest Roland Garros matches of all time, Alcaraz closing the tournament with a running forehand winner.
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The Athletic's tennis team, Matthew Futterman, Charlie Eccleshare and James Hansen, present their takeaways from the second Grand Slam of 2025, from the best shots and funniest moments to the biggest disappointments and the most incredible matches.
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Charlie Eccleshare: Maybe this category should be 'best match other than the men's final.' which realistically has this category sewn up. One I enjoyed a lot was Jack Draper's four-set win over Gaël Monfils in the second round. It had so many ingredients: late night, a home player, amazing rallies and drastic swings in momentum. Draper got the victory but the crowd, including the journalists, spent most of the match marveling at the athleticism and skill of the 38-year-old Monfils.
Matthew Futterman: Of course the two finals were the best matches. Both went the distance, with so much on the line. All the wind-induced errors in the women's final didn't bother me at all. It added to the suspense, turning tennis into a psychological survival contest that the cool-headed Gauff won by a mile, even if the scoreline was closer than that.
Besides those, I will go with Novak Djokovic's surgical dismantling of Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals. Djokovic dropped the first set, which turned out to be an information-gathering exercise. By the fourth, he was floating around the court, tossing up drop shots from behind the baseline before suddenly unleashing point-ending power. He played with so much surprise and creativity. There are many versions of Djokovic; the artist is my favorite.
James Hansen: Sabalenka vs. Iga Świątek — yes, including the last set, because of what it displayed about elite tennis. The two most dominant players of the 2020s got only their second Grand Slam meeting. Świątek's title defense was on the line, as was Sabalenka's validation as a clay-court player to compete with the best. The fears realized in the first five games, as Sabalenka streaked away and the forlorn Świątek of so many recent first sets appeared.
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The forcing quality of the play, as Świątek flattened her forehand and increased its speed to meet Sabalenka's barrage. The comeback to 4-4, the rise into the tiebreak. Sabalenka's toughness to put aside a lost lead and take the first set. Świątek showing the world why she is a four-time French Open champion, taking the second by hitting the shots and using the footwork that only she has. And then the clouds clearing for Sabalenka in the third, and Świątek having to accept that even if only for one set, the mountain was just too high to climb.
Eccleshare: With Świątek facing the winner of a match between Jelena Ostapenko and Elena Rybakina in the fourth round, many tennis fans were desperate for Ostapenko to set up one of the most intriguing matchups in tennis. Despite her general inconsistency, the Latvian has beaten Świątek, the five-time Grand Slam champion, in all six of their meetings.
When I asked Świątek if she had a preferred opponent in her third-round news conference, I expected the usual straight bat players give to this question. That's initially how Świątek responded, answering 'no.' We maintained eye contact, as I wasn't sure she was being entirely genuine. At that point Świątek burst into laughter and said: 'Am I a good liar?' She added after more laughs, 'Oh, my God. I couldn't play poker.'
Good at tennis, terrible at poker 😅
Iga Świątek will face Elena Rybakina in the fourth round👀#RolandGarros #tennis #RG25 pic.twitter.com/wD4SmFbuCi
— TNT Sports (@tntsports) May 30, 2025
It was a particularly enjoyable moment because Świątek has had a difficult time of late, and has not always been at her most relaxed. She also got her wish: Rybakina beat Ostapenko, before Świątek beat Rybakina in a thriller to reach the quarterfinals.
Futterman: Ben Shelton loves the show. In his opening match, he flipped a desperate passing shot over the net while sprinting toward the back of the court. It felt great off his racket, and with his back to the net, he didn't see the ball land.
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When he heard it called out, he asked the chair umpire how close it was to the line. These questions usually happen when a ball is an inch or less out, with the chair umpires pinching their thumb and forefinger in the universal tennis sign language for 'pretty close.'
I've never seen an umpire hold his hands more than a foot apart the way this one did.
Hansen: Gauff admitting that she aired a message from Alcaraz on social media when she made her breakthrough at Wimbledon in 2019.
Eccleshare: I thought Sabalenka would beat Gauff in straight sets in the women's final. I said they'd be tight, but I just thought Sabalenka would be too strong.
In the end it was Gauff who brought her best level, outlasting and ultimately outplaying the world No. 1.
Futterman: With Alcaraz down a break late in the fourth set of the men's final, I wrote on our live blog: 'Carlos finally looks like this is a lost cause.' That was at 7:11 p.m. local time.
We all know what happened over the next hour and a half.
Hansen: I thought Tereza Valentová had a serious chance of beating Gauff in their second-round match. She has the kind of game that can hurt Gauff and the American hadn't grooved into form. Gauff ran Valentová off the court.
Eccleshare: The way elite athletes' sacrifices are lionized is a bit odd, and inconsistent with pretty much every other profession: utter dedication at the expense of all else is expected to be the norm, and anything different to this approach is seen as strange.
So it was thought-provoking to hear Alexander Bublik, a mercurial talent who represents Kazakhstan, talking about how he works hard but needs to have balance in his life, like also seeing friends and having proper time with his wife and son. Speaking to his long-time agent added more color to this complex and intriguing character.
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Bublik's approach is at odds with most of the tour, but he feels what he does is totally normal. And it took him all the way to the quarterfinals, taking out Jack Draper in the fourth round with one of the finest displays by anyone all fortnight.
Futterman: Tournament directors kept putting men in the featured night match, many of which were one-sided affairs over in two hours. The women's matches that would have been obvious choices for that slot produced long, scintillating contests. Nothing like letting the rackets do the talking.
Hansen: Alfie Hewett's pain and joy. The British wheelchair tennis legend went through another heartbreaking loss on the Paris clay, but he rebounded from it on the same day to complete one of the most remarkable records in the sport.
Hewett's rivalry with Tokito Oda, 18 and from Japan, is fast becoming an epochal one. Oda beat Hewett at Roland Garros to win Olympic gold last summer in a three-set thriller. They met again at Roland Garros this year for the men's singles final, and Oda prevailed in straight sets, giving him a 5-2 head-to-head against Hewett in major finals.
A few hours later, Hewett took to the court to face Oda again, this time in the men's doubles. Hewett played with Gordon Reid, in a partnership that was won 22 Grand Slam titles; Oda played with Stéphane Houdet of France.
Hewett and Reid won the match in three sets, to complete what I am dubbing the Grand Slam double bagel. They are six-time champions in the Australian Open, and six-time champions at Roland Garros. A 6-0, 6-0 record at the first two majors of the year.
Eccleshare: The scheduling was once again a big disappointment. Women were never given the Court Phillippe-Chatrier night session, and were handed the graveyard slot at the start of play every day that it was available. It meant matches like world No. 1 Sabalenka's quarterfinal against Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen were played in front of near-empty stands. Sabalenka and other leading players called out the unequal scheduling.
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Tournament director Amelie Mauresmo continues to say that the night session decision is simply because men's matches are longer and so offer spectators better value for money. There's a bigger picture around equality, to which the tournament generally seems oblivious.
Futterman: I wanted to see Frances Tiafoe play Alcaraz in the semis. Their matches at the U.S. Open and and Wimbledon have been electric. Alcaraz brings out the best in Tiafoe, and likely would have won, but together they would have put on show.
Lorenzo Musetti got in the way — and then he injured his leg in the semifinal and was cooked after just over two sets. He retired early in the fourth. Hugo Gaston, the French drop-shot and underarm-serve artist, pulling out of his second-round match against Shelton's high-octane arsenal, comes a close second.
Hansen: The French Open's bafflingly restrictive media rights policy, which limits highlights from being posted outside of official channels and copyright-strikes fan footage, player footage and the montages, GIFs and fan cams that bring tennis stars to a wider audience scattered across the internet. Alcaraz and Sinner's men's final is the kind of cultural moment that can propel tennis back to the relevance that it had in the era of the Big Three and the Williams sisters. Let as many people see it as possible, in whatever form meets them where they are.
Eccleshare: Wild card Loïs Boisson's stunning run to the semifinals was one for the ages: the lowest-ranked woman (No. 361) to reach a major semi in the 40 years since records (collected by Opta) began. Boisson did it playing an exciting brand of tennis that scrambled the minds of top-10 players Jessica Pegula and Mirra Andreeva. Only recently back from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, Boisson is now up to No, 65 in the rankings and tennis fans will hopefully be seeing a lot more of her.
Futterman: Victoria Mboko, the Canadian daughter of war refugees from the Congo has become the main player I am keeping my eye on right now. I found about her at the Miami Open in March, met her at the Italian Open in Rome in May, and watched her blossom in Paris, surviving qualifying and winning two matches at 18.
Hansen: The ITF World Tennis Tour, which became a place of intrigue for more casual tennis fans at this French Open — hardcore followers (guilty) will have watched Boisson, Mboko and Valentová make waves at a Grand Slam and thought, 'Yeah, of course.'
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Players that break through are so often figured as unicorns. A trio of players making their first runs on the biggest stage in tennis, all three of whom did it on the back of remarkable win-rates and streaks on the third rung of the professional tennis ladder, is a reminder that looking for signs of sustainability to the success is just as important as celebrating the unexpected.
Eccleshare: Sabalenka delivered a withering news conference after losing to Gauff, criticizing her own play, saying that Gauff had hit balls 'off the frame,' and going as far to say that Świątek would have won the final had she beaten Sabalenka in the semifinals. The American slapped down this notion in her own news conference with an extremely dignified dismissal.
'I mean, I don't agree with that. I'm here sitting here,' she said.
Futterman: I asked Jasmine Paolini during a one-one-one interview what she thinks her superpower is. 'My smile,' she said. And then she showed me from about 18 inches away.
Hansen: Świątek's, 'Am I a good liar?'
Eccleshare: This one has to come from the men's final. So many to choose from, but the one that stands out to me is the crosscourt backhand passing shot Alcaraz hit at 5-6 in the fifth set, from so deep that he was almost with us in the press box. It took the match into a fifth set tiebreak, and from there he took over to win the title.
Futterman: Alcaraz's running forehand to win the final. He was ahead 9-2 in the tiebreak, but after all the ups and downs of this match, all the missed chances, there was an urgency to that moment. It was his first match point of seven available, but after five and a half hours, he needed to be done with this in one swing of his racket. On a full sprint across the baseline, he produced a swing-like-you-mean-it grunting stroke that Sinner watched fly past him like the whole match had done.
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Non-finals choice: Holger Rune's play around the net post against Quentin Halys in the third round. Nothing like defying the rules of the game like that, hitting a winner that never rises more than about eight inches off the ground.
Hansen: Carlos Alcaraz 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), *5-6, 30-30 Jannik Sinner. Alcaraz has already gotten from 15-30 to 30-30, when Sinner fizzes an arcing forehand return into the corner of the court. Alcaraz, stretching in desperation, flicks out his racket to play a defensive slice. For any other player, the best they could offer would have been a short reply or a miss in the net.
Alcaraz curves it all the way back to Sinner's own forehand corner, flipping the point — and the course of the last game of the last set of a Grand Slam final — back in his favor. Sinner puts up a shortish ball and Alcaraz dismisses it with a backhand winner. Then he gets to the tiebreak with Charlie's shot, and wins the title with Matt's.
Thanks to the aforementioned media policy, we can't show any of them here.
🎾 ATP:
🏆 Carlos Alcaraz (2) def. Jannik Sinner (1) 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), 7-6(10-2) to win the French Open in Paris. It is the Spaniard's fifth Grand Slam title.
🎾 WTA:
🏆 Coco Gauff (2) def. Aryna Sabalenka (1) 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-4 to win the French Open in Paris. It is the American's second Grand Slam title.
📈 Loïs Boisson moves up 296 places from No. 361 to No. 65 after her incredible run to the French Open semifinals. Boisson, who started the tournament as the French No. 24, is the now the No. 1 women's player in the country.
📈 Alexander Bublik ascends 19 spots from No. 62 to No. 43 after reaching the French Open quarterfinals.
📈 Victoria Mboko enters the top 100 for the first time, after rising 21 spots from No. 120 to No. 91.
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📉 Casper Ruud drops eight places from No. 8 to No. 16 after failing to defend his semifinal points from last year's French Open.
📉 Iga Świątek falls two places from No. 5 to No. 7 after Aryna Sabalenka ended her French Open title defense.
📉 Stefanos Tsitsipas moves down six spots from No. 20 to No. 26.
🎾 ATP
📍Stuttgart, Germany: Stuttgart Open (250) featuring Alexander Zverev, Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, Gaël Monfils.
📍's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands: Rosmalen Grass Court Championships (250) featuring Daniil Medvedev, Gabriel Diallo, Ugo Humbert, Alexei Popyrin.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA
📍London: Queen's (500) featuring Zheng Qinwen, Emma Raducanu, Elena Rybakina, Madison Keys.
📍's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands: Rosmalen Grass Court Championships (250) featuring Liudmila Samsonova, Bianca Andreescu, Maria Sakkari, Danielle Collins.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men's and women's tours continue.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)