French Open recap: Gael Monfils performs a resurrection after Coco Gauff’s rackets disappear

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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 three, Gaël Monfils performed another resurrection Philippe-Chatrier, Novak Djokovic got into a tussle over the roof, Coco Gauff forgot her rackets and Daniil Medvedev had a mid-match string crisis.

How did Gaël Monfils perform another late-night resurrection?

When Gaël Monfils crashed into the advertising screens five points into his match against Hugo Dellien of Bolivia, it looked like the Philippe-Chatrier faithful wouldn’t even get a night session, let alone another audience with their hero, the beating heart of French men’s tennis and its greatest conjurer.

When Monfils was two sets down, it looked like they would be going home early. But Monfils, 38 and in one of the great runs of form of his life, is more than au fait with a late night at Roland Garros.

In 2023, he found himself 0-4 down in the fifth set against Sebastian Báez of Argentina, with cramps so intense that he hobbled around the terre battue like a zealot in search of a congregation. His people rose to him then. The groundstrokes flowed like they have done for so many years. Monfils, staggering from point to point and winner to winner, won the deciding set 7-5.

This time, he needed his congregation for two whole sets and then some. But when he leveled the match to roars that echoed around Boulogne-Billancourt, it was no surprise.

The stadium was full, bar a few empty seats from people whose work commitments meant that this match went too late. Outside, fans without night session tickets sat on deckchairs, roaring on a smaller version of their hero on a massive screen.

Monfils led the final set 3-0 and looked to be cruising, before Dellien put up some staunch resistance on his service game. Monfils earned break point time and again, but was dragged back to deuce time and again, leaning on his racket and looking like he was ready to expire. Had Dellien held, a two-game deficit would have felt dangerous.

The crowd were not to be denied. Dellien, under even more pressure than Monfils, hoiked a forehand wide for 4-0. Things were easier after that.

How did Coco Gauff forget her most important item?

Coco Gauff said she has never felt more relaxed before a Grand Slam first round-match than she did Wednesday morning at Roland Garros.

Gauff was so chill that she forgot to bring an essential piece of equipment to the court: her rackets. As had happened to compatriot Frances Tiafoe, Gauff went to her bag to to grab a racket for the coin toss and … nothing.

What ensued was an awkward few minutes. Gauff looked to her box to tell them what was missing, then held up her bag and opened it wide, in case they didn’t get the point from the fact that she had nothing to play tennis with. A ball kid was then sent on a very important mission to the locker room, in search of the Yonex sticks belonging to the world No. 2.

Gauff said with everything else that goes into her bag, including shoes and fluids and snacks, it felt substantial enough that missing half a dozen rackets was not completely ridiculous. She also said that the oversight was so absurd that it may have worked in her favor, ahead of her 6-2, 6-2 defeat of Olivia Gadecki of Australia.

“It probably relaxed me going into the match, because it was just such a funny thing,”she said in her post-match news conference.

She’d been focused on the conditions ahead of the match. It was cool and blustery, which she said took the pressure off because it made playing perfect tennis impossible.

Later, she posted a picture of her French Open to-do list on X.

Next up for Gauff is the raw but very talented 18-year-old Czech, Tereza Valentová. She’s definitely going to need her rackets for that one.

oops, forgot the last one pic.twitter.com/ajqcgFg6mn

— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) May 27, 2025

Matt Futterman

Why did Novak Djokovic have issues with the Court Philippe-Chatrier roof?

It’s rare for a tennis match to be described as a stop-start affair, but the first set of Novak Djokovic’s match against Mackenzie McDonald was painfully stilted.
The weather was at fault, with intermittent rain leading both players to interrupt play to ask umpire Damien Dumusois why the roof wasn’t being closed.

The French Open organizers like the event to be an outdoor tournament as much as possible. They often waits until a point of no return to close the roofs on Courts Philippe-Chatrier and Suzanne-Lenglen, in a bid to avoid play continuing on the outside courts while the main courts turn into an indoor affair.

As early as the sixth game, the rain was falling heavily enough for the players to ask if the roof was going to be closed. High winds were also making conditions difficult, and this dance carried on until Djokovic came out to serve for the first set up 5-3. The roof began to close, and Djokovic duly served out the set while it inched shut overhead.

Djokovic, who received a time violation for one of his protestations, said: “I was just asking if and when they are going to make a decision to close the roof and how long we will have to play” in a news conference.

“That was my first question, how long we are going to play under that rain, because it was quite pouring with rain out there on the court. It was affecting the court, as well. The court became quite damp, a lot of bad bounces.

“The first information I got from the chair umpire was that they decided to wait. And so I asked, ‘Who is “they” and where are “they”?’ He said that it’s supervisors and others that are deciding to leave it open.”

Djokovic said he asked for the supervisors and officials that make up the “they” to come outside, because conditions can look better they are from inside. He added that he asked Dumusois why a court with a roof should not use it just because other courts are continuing to play. This is at the center of the to close the roof or not to close the roof question, as it can create a disparity in conditions.

The French Tennis Federation did not respond to a request for comment on their decision process, but with more rain expected, this debate is unlikely to go away.

Charlie Eccleshare

What made Daniil Medvedev change his strings halfway through a match?

A struggling Daniil Medvedev went to extreme lengths to try and keep his Roland Garros hopes alive Tuesday, and it very nearly worked.

Trailing by two sets to Cameron Norrie, Medvedev changed his strings mid-match. He recovered to win the next two sets and even served for the match in the fifth, but he ultimately lost by a 7-5, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 scoreline.

It continues a miserable year for Medvedev, who also lost in the first round of the Australian Open to a dogged but relatively underpowered leftie: the young American Learner Tien.

Medvedev has spoken before about his struggles to hit winners with some of the balls used on the ATP Tour, and he has tweaked his strings and string tension previously in recent years having never even considered it before 2023. Earlier this year in Doha, Qatar, he changed his strings mid-match against compatriot Karen Khachanov and it worked, helping him to turn around a one-set deficit into a three-set win.

On this occasion, Christopher Eubanks, the world No. 105 who is covering this year’s French Open for TNT Sports, spotted that Medvedev had switched from a natural gut hybrid setup to a tighter full polyester string. Natural gut strings have more of a trampoline effect on the ball than their polyester counterparts, and Medvedev explained that it was hindering him early on.

“I could hit a bit more and maybe miss less,” Medvedev explained in a news conference after the match, without commenting on the exact nature of what he changed.

“When I tried them on practice, people were killing me. So maybe in the match it’s a bit different, everyone is a bit tight so going through the court less. I changed for something (with which) I would make fewer mistakes.”

Medvedev’s search for the right racket strings feels symptomatic of his ongoing quest to rediscover his best tennis. The former world No. 1 and U.S. Open champion could well drop out of the world’s top 15 after this latest setback.

Charlie Eccleshare

And what is next for Hailey Baptiste?

Something might be going on with Hailey Baptiste, the 23-year-old Washington D.C. native.

Baptiste, yet another product of the Junior Tennis Champions Center, the same Maryland academy that produced Frances Tiafoe and Robin Montgomery, has already won 13 WTA Tour matches this year, more than any other season.

She made it through qualifying in Indian Wells, Calif., and in Rome. She beat the world No. 12, Daria Kasatkina, in Miami. On Monday she beat Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil, a French Open semifinalist two years ago, coming back from a set down to blow past the Brazilian 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

In an interview after her win Monday, Baptiste said she decided to get back to believing in herself after a period of doubting whether she could stay with the best players in the world. Each win has given her a little more belief. Having her two quasi big brothers — Frances and Franklin Tiafoe — in her box during plenty of matches, helps, too.

Hailey Baptiste is having her best tennis season to date. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)

Another factor in her favor? Unlike most Americans, clay is her favorite surface.

“I just like the movement of sliding around, I like that you can be more crafty and you kind of have to play tennis a little bit more rather than smack the balls,” she said.

Baptiste can indeed smack it, on both wings. She can sometimes get tight late in matches, especially when she is trying to close out opponents.

That didn’t happen Tuesday against Haddad Maia, even after she lost her first two match points on Haddad Maia’s serve. Baptiste finished off the Brazilian easily in the next game, staying on the front foot through the finish line.

“I don’t want to be playing the way she wants me to play, running around, letting my opponent be the aggressor,” she said.

She will face Nao Hibino of Japan Thursday for a spot in the third round.

Matt Futterman

Recommended reading

French Open men’s draw 2025

French women’s draw 2025

Tell us what you noticed on the third day…

(Top photo of Gaël Monfils: Franck Fife / AFP via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)

This news was originally published on this post .

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