Garros

With an opening game lasting 12 minutes, it felt inevitable that the final between the two best players in the world would be a marathon.

In the end, Alcaraz and Sinner put everything on the line for five hours and 29 minutes – the longest French Open final in history.

Just as the fifth set got under way at around 18:45 BST, British player Naomi Broady had to make the call to alter her travel plans.

“I’ve just changed my Eurostar ticket because I think it is safe to say I’m not going to make the 9pm one,” Broady said on BBC Radio 5 Live.

It was worth it, with an emotional Broady saying afterwards she felt “so lucky that I got to be here to witness this”.

“It feels like this is absolutely going to be a historic moment of our sport,” she added.

Former British number one Greg Rusedski likened Alcaraz to Hungarian escapologist Harry Houdini, while on TNT Sports, commentator Nick Mullins crowned him “King Carlos the second – the red king in the longest Roland Garros final”.

“Carlos certainly didn’t invent tennis, but he is perfecting it,” former British player Mark Petchey added on TNT Sports.

The first Grand Slam showpiece between the two dominant players on the ATP Tour had been a tantalising prospect – and it surpassed the hype.

Both Alcaraz and Sinner pushed themselves – and each other – to the limit in a classic contest that showcased all of their shot-making, athleticism and resilience.

Their fascinating rivalry is quickly turning into an enduring duel that could transcend the sport.

It has all the facets – the core talent, gripping encounters on the biggest stages and the blend of personalities.

Alcaraz, with his swashbuckling style, passion and infectious smile, has long been a box-office star who engages millions of fans.

In the toughest moments of the battle against Sinner, he continued to play with freedom – perhaps too much for his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero – and demanded more noise from the Paris crowd.

They loudly responded as Alcaraz demonstrated the heart and courage – along with explosive returns and deft hand skills – for which he has become known and revered.

The majority of the 15,000 fans were jumping to their feet after every point in a thrilling finale, where both players continued to execute top-quality shots that often defied belief.

Alcaraz flew out of the blocks in the first-to-10 match tie-break of the deciding set, sapping every last bit of Sinner’s energy before sealing victory with a remarkable running forehand winner that fizzed down the line.

He fell flat on his back before Sinner trudged around the net for a warm, heartfelt embrace.

Alcaraz somehow found the energy to sprint off court, climbing up the stands to celebrate with 2003 French Open winner Ferrero, the rest of his team and his family.

Both players were given rapturous rounds of applause as they collected their trophies after the second longest major final in history.

Coco Gauff won the first French Open singles title of her career by fighting back to beat world number one Aryna Sabalenka in a rollercoaster final played in testing conditions.

American second seed Gauff claimed a 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 6-4 victory after a tense battle between the WTA Tour’s two leading players.

It is the second Grand Slam victory of the 21-year-old’s career, adding to the US Open title she won in 2023, also by beating Belarus’ Sabalenka.

Gauff recovered from a difficult start where she trailed by a double break, eventually finding her rhythm and benefiting from a huge number of mistakes from 27-year-old Sabalenka.

A stiff breeze played havoc with serve in the opening two sets, leading to the pair exchanging 12 breaks in an entertaining if not high-quality affair.

Gauff, who lost in the 2022 final, settled quicker in the deciding third set to move a break up and kept her nerve to serve out victory.

She had to survive another break point before winning her second match point, falling to the clay on her back when Sabalenka pushed a forehand wide.

With her parents Candi and Corey dancing euphorically in the stands, Gauff shared an affectionate hug with Sabalenka before running off court to celebrate with her family.

Suffering a shock loss in the Roland Garros last 16 is a mark of how far Draper has come in the past year.

Twelve months ago in Paris, the 23-year-old Englishman suffered a chastening first-round defeat to 176th-ranked Dutchman Jesper de Jong while still figuring out what his most effective game style was.

Realising he was trying to be too aggressive, Draper sought a better balance.

Winning his first ATP title just a few weeks later helped boost his confidence before he enjoyed a run to the US Open semi-finals.

Improved fitness has also been a key factor.

After winning the biggest title of his career on the Indian Wells hard courts in March, he quickly set about using his most potent tools – first serve and forehand – on the clay.

Reaching the Madrid Open final showed he had the ability to be succeed on the surface and the fifth seed played maturely in his first three matches in Paris, before being thrown off-kilter by Bublik.

“I struggle to put things in perspective, but I am proud of the effort I’ve done on the clay. I think I’ve really improved,” Draper said.

“This year I’m leaving number five in the world, I’ve made the fourth round, I’m playing consistently really good tennis week in and week out.

“I always use the fuel and the hurt to better myself.”

Coming into the French Open, Norrie said he had been playing some of his best tennis, describing his level as similar to when he was a top-10 player back in 2022.

It raised eyebrows – but he proved to be right.

A memorable five-set win over former world number one Medvedev set the tone, followed by victories against Argentine qualifier Federico Gomez and fellow Scot Jacob Fearnley, who replaced him as British number two earlier this year.

Facing Djokovic was a different proposition.

Norrie had lost all five of his previous meetings with the three-time French Open champion, including a three-set defeat in the Geneva Open 10 days ago.

He was quickly outmanoeuvred in the first set and, after Djokovic needed medical treatment on foot blisters, the British number three could not maintain an early break in the second.

Crucially, Norrie could not convert more chances, with Djokovic saving break points in lengthy service games at 2-2 and 3-3.

The former world number one then raced away with the final set, breaking early and reeling off five games in a row before serving out victory.

Despite not being able to end his miserable run against Djokovic, Norrie said it has been “a really enjoyable” clay-court swing.

Earlier this year he had been in danger of tumbling out of the world’s top 100 after a difficult couple of years struggling for form and fitness.

But a reinvigorated Norrie will now move back into the top 60 when he starts the grass-court season back in the UK.

“I played 20 clay-court matches, and for me that’s huge,” he said.

“The way for me to take confidence is playing and then actually getting through some tough matches.”

The French Open night sessions – which were introduced in 2021 – feature just one singles match on Court Philippe Chatrier.

A women’s singles match, played over three sets, has not been put in this primetime slot since 2023 – meaning the past 19 night-time sessions have been men’s singles matches, which are played over five sets.

Only four matches have been from the women’s draw since they were brought in four years ago.

Questions are raised every year about whether the French Open should do more to promote the women’s game.

Mauresmo says women’s matches potentially going “really fast” is the justification behind the choices.

“There is nothing new under the sun compared to the previous editions,” she said.

“We have one single match per night session. It hasn’t changed. We won’t change everything again.

“Two sets can go really fast when you have three sets minimum – that’s the lens for me.

“It’s not the level the [women] reach right now. I’m not talking about this.”

Mauresmo also said the tournament does not want to have two matches in the night session, like the Australian Open and US Open, in fear of creating late finishes.

She pointed to the full crowd at Thursday night’s match between French favourite Gael Monfils and British number one Jack Draper – played in front of a full house until it finished at 23:45 local time – as a measure of the schedule’s success.

“If we have two matches in the night sessions, it doesn’t work in terms of how late the players are going to finish,” she said.

“But if we start earlier, the stands are going to be empty in most of the first match, so we keep this one match in the evening.

“It’s not ideal. We cannot check every box because we have many, many things to think when we are doing these choices.”

Over the past 12 months, Draper has enjoyed a steep rise and achieved a series of notable career landmarks.

He has moved into the world’s top five after reaching his first Grand Slam semi-final at last year’s US Open, winning ATP titles on grass and hard courts, as well as reaching his first clay-court final in Madrid last month.

Observers with a deep understanding of the game have long insisted Draper has the ability to perform well on the red dirt, with British former world number four Tim Henman telling BBC Sport recently his best attributes – his left-handed serve and crunching forehand – could “work on any surface”.

Once he got going against Bellucci, Draper proved that again.

Cutting out double faults helped his first serve became increasingly dominant – climbing from 58% of points won with the opening shot in the first set to 92% in the second – while the volume of forehand winners also increased.

The venom of this shot was too hot for Bellucci to handle – and wowed the Paris crowd, who regularly gasped at Draper’s power and accuracy.

Another forehand zinger on his first match point clinched victory and a second-round meeting with either France’s Gael Monfils or Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien on Thursday.

Fearnley was ranked outside of the world’s top 500 just 12 months ago but the 23-year-old has risen rapidly up the rankings to a career-high of 55.

He will face either Christopher O’Connell of Australia or French 22nd seed Ugo Humbert in the second round.

After clinching the opening set via a tie-break, Fearnley broke early in the second and raced out to a 4-1 lead before serving the set out to love.

Wawrinka, who knocked Andy Murray out in the first round last year, dropped serve immediately in the third set but fought back to move level at 2-2 – much to the delight of the crowd on court 14.

However, their joy was short-lived as Fearnley quickly restored his lead and won four straight games to wrap up victory.

Fearnley has now won on his main draw debut at each of the three Grand Slams he has featured at so far – Wimbledon, the Australian Open and Roland Garros.

Electronic line calling uses cameras, computers and sensors to track a ball and is used by tennis umpires to judge whether a ball is in or out.

It has been claimed the red dust layer on the clay courts of Roland Garros compromises the accuracy and reliability of the technology because it is a ‘live’ surface which moves during the match.

But Paul Hawkins, the inventor of electronic line calling system Hawk-Eye, says the technology is accurate on the surface and it is the mark left by the ball on the clay that is not accurate.

“It’s like a cliff edge [the plastic white line], so [the ball] can hit that part of the line and then carry on travelling forwards and not actually hit the clay until four or five millimetres beyond the line, which would then be where you would begin to see a mark on the court,” Hawkins told BBC Sport.

“The mark on the court looks like it is out whereas actually it has clipped the line.”

However, Hawkins believes Roland Garros is possibly “better” without electronic line calling and says that if players looking at the mark – which has been done for more than a century – is accepted, then “it is still fair”.