The Athletic has live coverage from the 2025 French Open.
Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day seven, Jõao Fonseca was bigboyed, a French wild card achieved a deferred milestone and the American world No. 1 added to criticism of the tournament’s night sessions.
How did Lois Boisson come back from a nightmare to live out a dream?
Before this week, the only thing most casual sports fans knew about French tennis player Lois Boisson was that she had been the object of a nasty moment from British player Harriet Dart.
Dart asked the chair umpire to tell Boisson to wear deodorant because she “smells really bad,” during a 6-0, 6-3 defeat to Boisson in the last 32 of the Rouen Open in April. Courtside microphones picked up her complaint over her opponent’s personal hygiene during a changeover in the second set.
The tennis gods appear to have punished Dart. The Brit has not won a WTA Tour match since, while Boisson is into the second week of her home Grand Slam for the first time. After her three-set, third-round win over fellow French wild card Elsa Jacquemot at Roland Garros, Boisson was asked if the Dart incident had been difficult to deal with.
“It was not difficult to deal with. It was OK. It was nothing for me,” she said.
Boisson would know, as would tennis fans that spend a little more time studying every level of the game. She was supposed to be in the French Open this time last year, as a reward for a remarkable 2024 season. Like the emerging players at this year’s event, Victoria Mboko of Canada and Tereza Valentová of Czechia, Boisson went on a tear through the ITF Tennis Tour, two rungs below the top of women’s tennis. She went 31-7 on the year, the kind of win streak that suggests any breakthrough run at a bigger event is the sign not of a purple patch, but something more sustainable.
A week before the tournament, she tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her left knee and missed nine months of tennis. It caused her pain against Jacquemot, especially in a second set that Boisson lost 6-0, but she said she is used to managing it.
Boisson, who started the tournament as world No. 361 and will be in the top 200 coming out of it, will face American world No. 3 Jessica Pegula for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Matt Futterman
What does João Fonseca need to hang with the top players for five sets?
For João Fonseca, Saturday was a humbling afternoon as he was thrashed 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 by Jack Draper. A Grand Slam third-round at 18 is a significant achievement, even for a player with a ceiling as high as Fonseca’s, but this match showed the importance of raising the floor.
Had Fonseca made the fourth round, he would have been only the third 18-year-old to do so at Roland Garros since 2000. The other two are Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Draper is the first top-five player Fonseca has played, and only the second top-10 player after Andrey Rublev, who the Brazilian dispatched in a thrilling performance at January’s Australian Open.
In his news conference, Draper was too diplomatic to suggest that a match up problem contributed to the result, but world No. 3 Alexander Zverev outlined what he sees during his own conference. “I think Jack really doesn’t fit him. It’s as simple as that. Lefty, heavy forehand to his backhand is still a little bit of a problem,” Zverev said.
The most obvious and important element, however, was the gulf in strategy and in variety of attacking approach. Fonseca is used to his near-peerless weight of shot knocking opponents back, which gives him time to step into the court and finish points. Draper was able not just to absorb his power, but to send it back with interest, turning points from defense into attack in ways Fonseca couldn’t consistently match. That led the Brazilian to go more even more power and thinner margins, weighting the match further and further in Draper’s favor.
João Fonseca’s defeat to Jack Draper showed how rising talents need to raise their floors to match their ceilings. (Julien de Rosa / AFP via Getty Images)
The Brit showcased his variety through his use of the drop shot, hitting 15 in total as Fonseca tired. The Brazilian said that Draper’s intensity, and his ability to “be aggressive but not going for the lines,” stood out.
Draper and Zverev have both themselves experienced the challenge of making the step up from gifted youngster to established tour player, and know that it takes time. Fonseca was given a lesson Saturday, but his career so far suggests that he is ready to learn from it.
Charlie Eccleshare
How Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys added to night session criticism
Pegula became the latest player to criticize the French Open’s policy of scheduling only men’s matches in the primetime night session on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
World No. 2 Coco Gauff and four-time French Open champion Iga Świątek had already questioned the lack of equality in the scheduling in the previous couple of days, and three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur published a lengthy note on social media calling out the double standards in how women’s and men’s tennis are spoken about. Earlier in the week and last year, Jabeur directly criticised the French Open for its scheduling.
Pegula, a member of the WTA Players’ Council, said in a news conference: “Every year it’s the same thing. It’s never equal. I don’t really know what else to say. They don’t really seem to care or want to do anything different about it.
“It should be more fair. We are an event that is supposed to be equal. Slams, it’s supposed to be equal. Why not give us some more chances to be?
Roland Garros tournament director Amelie Mauresmo defended the tournament’s night-time scheduling in a news conference on Friday. Mauresmo denied that it sent out a message that women are valued less than men, insisting that the policy was purely down to the length of men’s matches offering spectators better value for money.
Pegula had some company later on in her complaints.
“Women typically have night matches everywhere else, so I don’t think it’s a point of discussion at other tournaments,” Australian Open champion Madison Keys said.
“Seeing as there is only one match, I think that it’s much different than other tournaments, but I think women’s matches are very entertaining, and they have great value, and they deserve to be the feature match.”
What’s the solution?
Pretty simple, at least for Keys. “The solution is to put them at night.”
Charlie Eccleshare
And how Keys developed her toughness in the tightest moments
Coming into this season, Keys didn’t have the greatest reputation for keeping her cool when matches got tight. She’s done pretty well to turn that around. In Australia, she saved a match point against Świątek in the semifinal. On Saturday in Paris, she saved three match points against Sofia Kenin to reach the second week of the French Open.
Serving at 4-5 in the third set, she saved the first with a big kick serve that Kenin couldn’t get back. She saved the next one with big deep forehand that Kenin sent long. Then came a ripping, angled cross-court backhand. Two points later she was level at 5-5. She won the next two games and headed to the fourth round against Hailey Baptiste.
Baptiste has gone a long way lately toward shaking that same reputation. She has struggled to break through on the tour the past couple of years, even as she got to the precipice of some big wins. She served for a first-round win in Australia against Germany’s Laura Siegemund, for example, but couldn’t close and lost the next set and the match.
She’s been a tough out lately though. She’s won six consecutive tiebreaks, including one in Saturday’s win over Jéssica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain. Now comes Keys. They’ve had a tight one match.
“The last time we played, I think it was last year at Indian Wells, and I had a few match points,” she said.
“I’m definitely looking to play her again and change the narrative, because that one definitely stung. I think she got a little bit lucky getting out of there.”
Matt Futterman
Recommended reading
French Open men’s draw 2025
French women’s draw 2025
Tell us what you noticed on the seventh day…
(Top photo of Lois Boisson: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)