Coco Gauff felt great embarrassment when she realized she had walked onto court without her rackets before her French Open first-round match.
The world No. 2, despite this funny incident, confidently defeated Olivia Gadecki with a score of 6-2, 6-2.
Her preparation for the match on Court Philippe-Chatrier certainly began with an unusual moment.
When Gauff opened her bag, she discovered her rackets were missing.
Looking utterly confused, the 20-year-old player immediately turned towards her support team sitting in the stands.
She then picked up her empty bag, held it open in their direction, and seemingly mouthed the question, “Rackets?”
A quick-thinking ball boy saved the day by sprinting onto the court with five rackets for the former US Open champion.
After the match, when asked about the unusual moment, Gauff humorously commented: “The person responsible isn`t in my box [support area] right now, because he knows the rackets belong in my bag.”
She added that typically her coach is responsible for packing her rackets due to his superstitions.
“He prefers to re-grip each racket daily,” she said. “I`m not bothered; I can play even with a worn grip.”
“I walked onto the court and discovered I had no rackets,” Gauff continued. “The funny thing is, I had just been teasing Frances Tiafoe about the exact same thing happening to him recently. Guess I need to keep quiet about that now!”
“But hey,” she concluded with a smile, “I`m blaming my coach, so it`s fine.”
Frances Tiafoe had a similar incident in March during a match in Indian Wells. Interestingly, Tiafoe also won his first-round match at Roland-Garros this Sunday, defeating Roman Safiullin.
The start of Tiafoe`s match was briefly delayed while his coach, David Witt, had to rush off court to retrieve his rackets.
This isn`t Gauff`s only recent on-court mishap. In Rome, she mistakenly served during a match against Qinwen Zheng before her opponent was ready on the court.
