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Sports fans, set your DVRs for Coco Gauff's next match [1]
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Date: 2025-06-06
Tomorrow, formidable American tennis player Coco Gauff will be squaring off against Belarussian player Aryna Sabalenka in the top-2 final of the French Open. Yesterday, Gauff beat French tennis player Loïs Boisson in the semifinals in a match which Boisson conceded “was quite simply too tough for me.”
Sabalenka is of course also a formidable opponent, having ended Polish star Iga Swiatek’s 26-match winning streak and denying Swiatek the opportunity to become “the first woman to win four consecutive championships at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament since professionals were admitted in 1968,” according to ESPN News Services (the tournament is “open” in the sense that being a professional player is not a formal requirement to enter).
Reading up about Gauff, I ran into several casual uses of the word “clay.” Gauff is very good on clay, that sort of thing. It seems that the French Open is unique for clay courts, whereas most other professional tournaments are played on grass courts or on “hard” courts (concrete or macadam).
I wish that court surfaces were the most interesting thing about this story. Back in 2021, our own Laura Clawson wrote about Naomi Osaka withdrawing from the French Open and an infuriatingly racist question Coco Gauff got from a reporter at about that time. “You are often compared to the Williams sisters. Maybe it’s because you’re black. But I guess it’s because you’re talented and maybe American, too.”
If that was supposed to be a compliment, it went completely sideways. The reporter revealed his own ignorance and superficiality. Did he think to maybe compare Gauff to Chris Evert, who has won more titles on clay courts than any other woman? Nah, he decided to ask the one question any jackass who doesn't know much about tennis would think to ask.
Gauff responded with grace and elegance, saying it would be a dream to play against Serena Williams.
Gauff’s match against Sabalenka will take place at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow Paris time, which will be 9:00 a.m. on America’s Eastern Daylight-Saving time zone. None of the ESPN channels will be broadcasting the French Open. It seems that the only way in America to watch the French Open finals will be through a streaming service like DirecTV, Hulu or Sling.
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