Coco Gauff’s 2025 French Open got off to a rocky start. Gauff ran into trouble before her first match even began when she forgot to bring her racket out to the court.
As Gauff was getting ready to take on Olivia Gadecki in the first round, she noticed something important was missing from her equipment bag. The moment was captured on video, which showed Gauff digging through her bag and then shrugging her shoulders twice once she realized there was no racket in it.
Gauff and Gadecki even shared a smile while Gauff was explaining the situation to her opponent.
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The rackets were eventually delivered to Gauff on the court. While it was an inauspicious start for Gauff, she was able to put it behind her quickly. Once the match started, Gauff was able to lock in, breezing past Gadecki 6-2, 6-2 to advance to the second round of the event.
It was an expected win for Gauff, who enters the 2025 French Open as the No. 2 ranked women’s player. Only Aryna Sabalenka is ranked higher on the women’s side. Given that seeding, the two can only meet in the final at the 2025 French Open.
The win pushes Gauff to the second round, where she’ll take on Tereza Valentova.
Coco Gauff teased Frances Tiafoe over racket mishap
While the racket mishap didn’t impact Gauff, she’s likely going to hear about it from at least one other U.S. tennis star. Frances Tiafoe had the exact same thing happen to him in March, and Gauff teased him about the incident.
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While Gauff blamed Tiafoe’s coach David Witt for packing Tiafoe’s bag poorly, Gauff also gave Tiafoe a hard time, saying, “Frances is always late to everything and does forget a lot of things. And I have seen and heard he’s showed up to the airport without stuff and things like that.”
As Gauff said in that interview, coaches usually pack the equipment bags ahead of a match. So, while it probably wasn’t Gauff’s fault she didn’t have her rackets Tuesday, she won’t get off completely scot-free.
When Tiafoe forgot his racket, Gauff made an unfortunate comment that’s going to come back to haunt her after Tuesday’s mishap, per Sports Illustrated.
“When asked if she checks her bag, Gauff answered, ‘I can tell by weight. He should have been able to tell by weight. Yeah, I don’t know. He’s also Frances and probably wasn’t thinking.'”
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Whoops. Turns out Gauff may need some extra practice recalibrating her ability to judge the weight of her equipment bag.
That’s really the only thing Gauff needs to work on following a dominant performance Tuesday. Well, that and an apology to Tiafoe, who comes out of this whole thing looking vindicated after the same exact thing happened to Gauff.
