PARIS — Coco Gauff caused a brief, funny delay at the French Open when she stepped into Philippe Chatelier without a racket on Tuesday.
Gouf seemed confused before the boy in the ball carried the racket pack a few minutes later.
“That’s better,” the court announcer said. It depicted laughter, applause and smiles from the crowd at the main tournament stadium.
Despite the confusion, no. Second-seeded Gauff defeated Australia’s Olivia Gadecki 6-2, 6-2 in her opening match.
The Americans jokingly, her coach accused the missing racket.
“To be honest, as long as I was on tour, my coach always kept his racket in his bag because he was very superstitious,” she said. “I’m blaming that at the coach. It’s fine.”
Gauff later enjoyed himself on social media, posting to X X with “I put my tennis racket in my bag” along with the caption “Oops, forget the last one.”
Oops, I forgot the last one pic.twitter.com/ajqcgfg6mn
-CocoGauff (@cocoga) May 27, 2025
Gadekki also found humor in the incident.
“Now I thought about it, so it seems that was the only way I could win the match,” she said of Gauff’s empty-handed arrival. “It was an interesting little incident.”
Gauff is Roland-Garros’ 2022 finalist and once again became a nominee for the title.
Elsewhere in the women’s bracket on Tuesday, American third seed Jessica Pegra carved a comfortable 6-2, 6-4 victory over Romanian Anka Todoni to advance to the second round.
Also, former French Open runner-up Sofia Kenin loosened French woman Valvara Gracheva 6-3 and 6-1, while Russia’s sixth seed Mira Andreva defeated Spain’s Christina Bussa 6-4 and 6-3.
Meanwhile, Poland’s 25-seed Magdalena Fretsch defeated former Wimbledon from Tunisia and US Open runner-up Jabert 7-6 (4), 6-0.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to the report.
