Men’s seeds out: No 3 Felix Auger-Aliassime (lost to Karen Khachanov); No 6 Alex de Minaur (lost to Botic van de Zandschulp); No 32 Ignacio Buse (lost to Benjamin Bonzi)

Tennis is a bit different at the US Open. And in many different ways. If you are one of our many British readers, and perhaps you have only been to watch tennis at Nottingham or Queen’s or Wimbledon, you would find the US Open an extremely odd experience. For a lot of you, it probably wouldn’t even be recognisable as a tennis tournament were it not for the action on the actual court.

For starters, everyone is talking. All the time. This is New York, after all, the city that never sleeps, presumably because no one ever shuts up long enough to get any shuteye. I don’t know if this is a universal experience but we used to get shouted at during school lunch if the overall conversation noise level got too loud. So I get a bit tense when lots of people are talking when really they shouldn’t. (Yes, I was a terrible swot.)

And Marijana Veljovic’s interventions on Arthur Ashe on Thursday really reminded me of Dr. Wilson (who I later got to know as James, a lovely, dry man, and who died after a stroke a few years ago and whose wife remains one of my mentors) ringing a bell and making the whole hall eat in silence.

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And then there is the movement. I am the kind of person who stops walking if the pavement is near a golf course and some 25-handicapper is about to tee off, or will try not to drive my car behind the bowler’s arm at roadside cricket grounds. At tennis events, I am particularly paranoid about infuriating a player by walking past the wrong bit of a practice court at the wrong time. New Yorkers have none of this anxiety, and will happily walk three hot dogs and two Honey Deuces precariously down the steps of the lower bowl between first and second serve.

Should it change? Maybe. And the USTA says it has responded to player complaints by upping signage and advice to fans about noise and the ever-increasing ring lights of influencers and indeed regular spectators who like taking well-lit photos.

But the sport also needs to remain open and accessible. In the words of Coco Gauff: “I definitely think it’s cool to have a new demographic and I definitely think it helps grow the sport. But like with anything, any venue you go to, if you’re being invited to a red carpet, you wouldn’t show up in jeans. I think it’s just follow the etiquette of the sport. That’s all.”

Highlights of the day

It turned out to be Gael Monfils’s last grand slam match on Thursday, beaten by Learner Tien on Louis Armstrong. There were so many moments of joy - of course - but I did enjoy Tien apologising in his on-court interview for drop-shotting him so much. But maybe the real interview nugget came in the press conference, when Monfils revealed he already has a job lined up. Not in coaching, commentary or anything else - but working for a Swiss wealth management firm. One of tennis’s great mavericks in a Schoffel gilet. Go figure.

“Being Flavio Cobolli is always… I mean, sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s not. Today, I love to be Flavio Cobolli.” - Flavio Cobolli after beating Tristan Schoolkate

Coco Gauff had lost “a bunch” (five out of eight) of times to Paula Badosa and was broken trying to serve out the match on Ashe. You could see what it meant to her as she celebrated winning the ensuing second-set tie-break, and put her finger to her ear to send the crowd wild. When Gauff starts conducting the crowd, it tells me she is in a very happy and confident space. And that is a Gauff for opponents to fear.

Brit-watch

The end of the British challenge on the first Thursday. Not a bad run, given three of our best players are sat at home unable to play. But not a great one.

Harriet Dart was the penultimate departee, well beaten by Marie Bouzkova. Dart was very congested in press afterwards and said she was running a temperature throughout, on what was already a very hot day. She did look and sound quite ill - but she also conceded it might not have made much difference against the No 25 seed, whom she will see again in a few weeks’ time when Britain play Czechia in the BJK Cup.

And then Fran Jones gave a decent account of herself against good friend Iva Jovic. Jones, whose praises I sang yesterday, will be on the verge of a top-100 place when the rankings refresh. (She also will not have to worry about the BJK Cup, as she was not selected. I asked her if she would like to be, and uncharacteristically, she said “next question”. There is a story there, one to be told at a later date, no doubt.)

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

Wu Yibing is a player for whom Calvin has high praise - and that is quite rare. No 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz will clearly be a massive test (Ashe, around 6pm), but it should be entertaining at least.

If you like Serena or Venus Williams, then you may have heard they got a wildcard for the women’s doubles, and face Maya Joint (again!) and Chan Hao-ching. (Ashe, 00.15am)

And finally this is a big match for Grandstand, where it’s No 7 vs No 26 in the shape of Daniil Medvedev vs Arthur Rinderknech. (By quirk of fate, the No 7 seed in the women’s draw will face the No 26 seed in the match after on that same court, Navarro vs Muchova, and both No 18 seeds play on Grandstand on Friday too!)

Men’s seeds out: No 12 Rafael Jodar (lost to Yunchaokete Bu); No 16 Brandon Nakashima (lost to Alex Michelsen); No 23 Andrey Rublev (lost to Daniel Merida)

There are not many players whom I feel I could ask almost any question and they would find something interesting to say about it. Fran Jones is one.

It took her nearly 24 hours to beat Magda Linette, delayed by rain on Tuesday night and then held up by 30 minutes of lights-out tennis on resumption for the second time on Wednesday. (They also warmed up once a few hours earlier, only to be forced back inside before a point was played.)

It was an ordeal of a match, of which Jones has a whole scrapbook full, that also featured a lengthy video review in the final game as the Brit was desperately trying not to get tight.

The umpire overturned her own “not up” call and forced a re-play of the point, which Jones admitted was a fortuitous result as she would almost certainly have lost it without the intervention. She sprinted to her coaches after match point, rightfully celebrating only her second grand slam main draw win.

At some point, I feel I have to repeat what everyone in British tennis knows but most outside that community do not: Jones was born with three fingers and a thumb on each hand, and only seven toes. Doctors repeatedly advised her against doing things like playing sport, suggesting it would be impossible. Jones speaks English and Spanish fluently, but you imagine that is a word that she does not acknowledge in either language. She is a top 100 tennis player making a living playing the sport she was told would be beyond her. I don’t know the Spanish for impossible and metaphorically, neither does she.

I hope that, were Jones reading this, she would not think it patronising for me to point this out. She has refused to be defined by this genetic condition and we should not project that either. Her achievement of reaching the second round of the US Open for the first time is enough. But it bears repeating, so many people said this could not be done, people whom Jones proves wrong every time she steps onto a tennis court.

What happened after you went to bed?

Sort of nothing, but also something. Quite apart from wins for Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe and Mariano Navone, there was a victory for Carlos Alcaraz - but it was not straightforward.

A high-level first set earned Jaime Faria the opener, and he had two break points for a set-and-a-break lead - but fluffed them and didn’t win a game for another half an hour.

Alcaraz romped through to victory after that, but never let the bombs go on his serve: he averaged just 117mph on first serve, powder puff compared to the 140mph of which he is capable.

Brit-watch

I already sang the praises of Fran Jones, but she was the sole Brit to make it through on Wednesday. Katie Boulter blamed the conditions for the worst grand slam defeat of her career, beaten 6-1 6-0 by Karolina Muchova. She said she struggled to adapt to the late change to Louis Armstrong, and could not sight the ball properly when serving.

Meanwhile the men managed just one set between them, lucky loser Jacob Fearnley managing to force a fourth against Tomas Martin Etcheverry, but Toby Samuel and Jan Choinski both went down in straights against Jiri Lehecka and Botic van de Zandschulp respectively to end the British male challenge.

Men’s seeds out: None!

The rain came late on Sunday, on Tuesday it came early, soaking the hordes traipsing off the 7 train and the Long Island Rail Road at Mets–Willets Point, ensuring they would spend the rest of the day feeling ever so slightly damp: there was little chance of drying off, given the humidity of 86 per cent.

The US Open does at least have two courts with a roof, Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong, and the "virtual queue” system for the latter means it is always full on a wet day.

Tennis writer Steve Tignor said: “I like how Armstrong fills up on early rainy days, and fans will bring a real atmosphere to a semi-obscure match between two non-Americans, like Cobolli-Comesana.”

It probably does a disservice to French Open finalist Flavio Cobolli to call him semi-obscure, but it’s likely that a few thousand people on Armstrong left after that match as fans of a player they had never heard of before. He had started slowly, perhaps nervously, against Francisco Comesana, an Argentine who fills most of his schedule with clay-court tournaments. He is no mug though, and has two top-10 wins in his career, so going two sets up was a surprise but not a shock.

Cobolli is such a vibes player. You don’t need the scoreboard to tell you if he is up or down, you can simply look at the angle of his gaze. The Italian stared at his shoes for the first two hours of this match, feeling sorry for himself as Comesana got everything back, and usually with interest.

Then - having looked at them for long enough - he found his feet. The fans who were sheltering from the rain started to see light in those Caribbean Sea blue eyes, and like Flavio they started to believe. He hit more winners in the fifth set than he did in the first two combined, and everything started to come off.

After sealing match point and shaking hands, he stood in the middle of the court with his finger to his ear and his eyes closed. A self-confessed sleep-lover, he needed a wake-up call, and he got one.

What happened after you went to bed?

The rain came late too: meaning that those who had stuck around for the whole day fled for cover. Those who found it under the roof of Louis Armstrong were greeted by a raucous atmosphere, the stadium split between vociferous Filipino fans and beered-up Americans: the former had all heard of Alex Eala, and probably frantically traded tickets on Monday to get on court for their hero; the latter may never have heard of Mary Stoiana but were more than willing to get behind her, a kind of blowback to the roars of approval for Eala.

It was the inaugural performance of The Eala Show after its Broadway (well, boardwalk) transfer and it went down very well indeed. How many more nights will she get booked for?

Oh, and then Alexander Zverev contrived to go five sets and into the small hours with Lorenzo Sonego. He survived, but it was like the old days of the German wasting energy in early rounds of grand slams. And it finished at 1.55am…

Highlights of the day

“Monfils looks like he’s struggling,” said one worried TUSCer after Gael Monfils lost the first set on Louis Armstrong. It was only a blip though as he beat Adolfo Daniel Vallejo (he of Roland Garros sexism row fame) in four sets. I don’t know how many players have had a grand slam crowd sing them “Happy Birthday” on their 40th but it can’t be many. A pretty cool way to celebrate and a testament to his remarkable longevity.

Thea Frodin will hope that her career high does not end up being her turn as Serena Williams’s body double in the Oscar-winning film “King Richard”. She took five games off Elena Rybakina in the first round on Tuesday and walked off disconsolate. But as she was walking from media to the players’ area, some fans spotted her and started screaming her name. It’s possible that Frodin, 17, has never experienced that before, and a smile lit up her face. She looked talented, and you would think will be here again.

Quote of the day

“Maybe sometimes she could call the supervisor for her own outburst” - Belinda Bencic on Yulia Putintseva, who called the supervisor to ask about why her opponent was not defaulted for angrily whacking a ball into the stands. Bencic was indeed lucky, but the mad rule is that if no one is hurt (and they weren’t) it is just a warning.

Brit-watch

A day of waiting around for the Brits, some more than others. Arthur Fery was a couple of hours late to court, and at least an hour late to find his form once he got there. An error-strewn performance he partially blamed on only arriving in New York on Sunday after reaching the final of Winston-Salem ended in defeat to Lorenzo Musetti, but he said he would have signed for the 10 days he has had before they started.

Fran Jones had to wait even longer, only starting at nearly 9.30pm against Magda Linette. She scrapped to win the first set before they were suspended for rain - although not before she shouted at the tournament supervisor for letting them sit in the cold for five minutes: courtside, he told her over my shoulder that he was waiting for a call from the central office, where they were studying the rain radar.

“We don’t need a weatherman to tell us it’s bloody raining!” shouted back West Yorkshire’s finest.

And poor Jan Choinski waited around all day only to get called off in the evening. He’ll be back on Wednesday for his first-round match against Botic van de Zandschulp.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

The rally length might be about 2.5, but in the early window Ben Shelton vs Hubert Hurkacz (around 6pm) has the feel of a possible upset on Arthur Ashe. Shelton needed some time to get going against Tallon Griekspoor and while Hurkacz is not the force he once was, he is back in the top 50 and has won his last two matches against top-20 opponents.

Marta Kostyuk vs Sloane Stephens (around 6.30pm) will also be safe from any possible rain as they are on Louis Armstrong, and worth watching.

And for night owls, Aussies or Americans, I’m going for Alexander Bublik vs Adrian Mannarino, which could start any time between 2am and 4am - and frankly, anything could happen with those two.

Men’s seeds out: No 10 Arthur Fils (lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas); No 30 Matteo Arnaldi (lost to James Duckworth)

For Carlos Alcaraz, Monday was a tick-box exercise. That is not to detract from the threat of Roman Safiullin, far from it: the Russian’s obvious talent made this more than a formality for Alcaraz, untested in four months.

But virtually from the off, the Spaniard looked ready for the challenge, even if his Alice-banded hair was not, in my opinion. Not to be old-fashioned about it but… get a haircut, amigo. Anyway, he has promised this is the look for the whole tournament, so I’d better get used to it.

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And his tennis looks absolutely fine, so he can do whatever he wants, quite frankly. There were some vintage Alcaraz moments of magic. A scintillating half-volley here, a drop-shot there, a rundown that showed how just because your wrist is hurting, doesn’t mean you can’t do cardio.

The only concern, if that is the right word for a neutral podcast, was his serving. His average speed on first serve was just 113mph, with a peak of 128. He has touched 140mph in his career, so this was well within himself. And his claims that sometimes it is better to serve slower were not particularly convincing.

“The serve is the shot that I was struggling [with] the most,” Alcaraz said.

“There are some players they like to return when serve is coming over 130 miles, and when you serve a little bit slower than he wants to return, they struggle a little bit. So most of that speed is because of him. It was kind of tactics.

“I’m gonna try to serve better. The point is going to try to serve normal, but it’s a shot that I just always struggle, I guess. But it will be back, for sure.”

If he is to defend his title successfully, he will need it to come back. And soon.

What else happened after you went to bed?

Naomi Osaka. That’s what happened. You could argue this outfit was the highlight of her night, as she ground out a win against Anastasia Zakharova. (George’s prediction of an Osaka run here not looking great, so far.)

Osaka wasn’t the only thing that happened: Ben Shelton was broken three times in the first set by Tallon Griekspoor, but then bounced back to win in four sets and looked pretty decent (eventually) doing it; Iga Swiatek confirmed her tournament credentials by winning 2 & 3; Felix Auger-Aliassime of course made life hard for himself but avoided an upset against Rinky Hijikata in four sets; and Roger Federer turned up again.

The recent Hall of Fame inductee was given his official ITHOF ring (I don’t really get it either, but everyone seemed buzzing) and made another speech, having spent the previous few hours sat in a box with his former coach Ivan Ljubicic, his agent Tony Godsick and, er, Tim Henman, who seemed to spend most of the time getting increasingly annoyed at one of the Federer brood’s witty asides in his ear.

Oh, and Frances Tiafoe absolutely locked in to get through a five-setter against Martin Damm Jr.

Highlights of the day

Stan Wawrinka vs Matteo Berrettini was tipped up yesterday (in this newsletter) as a match to watch, and it was objectively amusing that the first two sets both went to tie-breaks, just as all four of the sets they played at Wimbledon. Then, in the first game of the third set, Berrettini asked for a video review for a foul shot by Wawrinka. Initially, it was very sweet as the two veterans embraced and grinned at the net, waiting for the decision.

But when it went against the Italian, his mood soured and he embarked on a lengthy argument with Marijana Veljovic, who said the replay “was not conclusive”. The result was conclusive though, and followed half an hour later, to seal the end Wawrinka’s grand slam career.

I’m sure it was a big deal for Emma Navarro to win the first round of her home slam, but it was an even bigger deal, it seems, for Lois Boisson to lose. Please enjoy this spectacular video of Boisson destroying her racket in the background of Navarro’s celebrations.

The duo of Travis Scott (bottom centre) and David Ferrer (top right) is surely one of the most unlikely pairings in a player box, but it seemed to work for Alcaraz. I wonder what they talked about.

Brit-watch

Magic Monday? It might just have been. Harriet Dart started the Brit-rush with a hard-fought three-set win over Peyton Stearns, who received treatment on an apparent foot injury. Qualifier Dart admitted afterwards even she was surprised she won, only her third ever main draw win here, and will face No 25 seed Marie Bouzkova next.

Following her into round two was lucky loser Jacob Fearnley, who completed a two-day epic to beat Martin Landaluce in five sets, although not without drama: first of all Landaluce twice served for the match and was broken; THEN Fearnley served for the match at 5-1 in the fifth and was 40-15 up when he completely missed an overhead. (He admitted it was, in context, the worst shot of his career.) He had time to run back after it bounced and have another go but still lost the point, and then the game… but managed to serve the match out two games later (largely thanks to three Landaluce errors!).

But Harry Wendelken couldn’t complete the set, despite a spirited effort by the 24-year-old against Luciano Darderi. Perhaps the nine hours and 14 minutes he spent on court in qualifying caught up with him, or perhaps facing the world No 22 was just too big a step up. He did show some great shot-making skills though, off both wings, and has great hands which allow him to improvise impressively. He is up to a career-high No 169 in the world and you’d think he has further to go.

What to watch on Tuesday (all times BST)

Tuesday feels like a more classic first-round day, where there aren’t many obvious upsets or stellar 50:50 match-ups.

But Lorenzo Musetti is probably cursing his luck, given world No 33 Arthur Fery is about as highly-ranked an opponent as you can get when you’re the No 13 seed. They are on Grandstand at around 5.30pm.

As a warm-up for that, I would recommend giving Yulia Putintseva and Belinda Bencic a go at 4pm on Stadium 17. (This is also the court closest to the edge of the site and has been nicknamed in the press room “the weed court” because of the fumes that float across from the park.)

And finally, I will be heading to Louis Armstrong Stadium around 10pm in New York (so 3am at home) to watch Alexandra Eala’s first-round match against the American Mary Stoaiana. Will NYC’s Filipino diaspora turn out for her like they have all over the world? I would not bet against it.

Men’s seeds out: No 19 Casper Ruud (withdrew); No 29 Cam Norrie (lost to Luca van Assche)

If you’re back in the UK, this should land in your inbox every morning at 6am (or later, if the tennis goes later), and with any luck it will catch you up on the best bits of the tennis you missed while you were sleeping…

The stars only come out a night, a metaphor that rings particulary true at the US Open. The night session is A Thing here perhaps more than at any other slam, with celebrities in the crowd and tennis’s best players on the court.

In that sense, Novak Djokovic and Venus Williams is about as good as it gets in terms of fame and achievement.

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And one thing you can almost guarantee with Djokovic these days is what boxer Gennady Golovkin once called a “big drama show”. Dressed all in black until the final set, he delivered. In warm, humid conditions (tough but not impressive), the 24-time slam champion quickly sweated through his outfit and was looking shaky, playing an uncharacteristically loose tie-break, featuring three forehand unforced errors, to drop the first set to Mariano Navone.

The turning point seemed to come midway through the second, when he won the longest rally of the match at that point (29 shots). He had lost 13 of the 18 rallies over nine shots to that point, but it felt like he was starting to recover.

Perhaps the vomiting, which came at 3-3 in the third and was shown in slow-motion by ESPN, helped - because while he lost that game, he broke five minutes later - and then went a break up in the fourth too.

Being sick though, it turns out, is really bad for you in the middle of a sporting event. Djokovic said his whole body then collapsed - specifically his right shoulder and his back - and he barely won a game after that. Nearly five hours it took Navone to put him away. That is a huge testament to Djokovic’s incredible resilience and sheer bloody-mindedness.

Is it the end for Novak? I wrote about it in this free-to-read piece for The i Paper.

What about Venus Williams? Oh yeah, I forgot about that. She started after midnight, having been switched onto Louis Armstrong at the last minute and then switched back. Sofia Kenin then dispatched her in a hard-fought two sets, finishing at just after 2am. The US Open, as usual, having a normal one.

Highlights of the day

Russian qualifier Polina Iatcenko produced the tightest serve I have ever seen, more than three hours into her match against Renata Zarazua. She was 8-7 up until the deciding tie-break, and her second serve clocked just 57 miles an hour on Court 6, landing closer to the net than the service line. She did win the point though, and the next one, sealing a remarkable comeback win.

Later on the same court, Thiago Tirante was matched against Adrian Mannarino, a real fire vs ice match-up, one of the biggest servers in the game and the man with trampoline strings. Tirante was 5-2 down in the fifth when rain suspended play on the outside courts, but has already served 19 aces including one at 145 miles an hour. It was my first time watching Tirante serve - it really is like a blur. Serious stuff.

Brit-watch

It was a big day for Toby Samuel, who is into second round of a slam and the top 100, both for the first time in his life. Now, Tomas Machac was not fully fit - Calvin said on the Day 1 pod that he should not have played at all - but nevertheless Samuel played pretty flawless tennis to see him off in straight sets. His Dad was here for qualifying but had not planned for the main draw: he will be flying back in on Tuesday to see his son take on Jiri Lehecka.

Conversely, Cam Norrie had another shocker, his third consecutive R1 grand slam defeat. I like Cam, he’s grown into a more effusive chap than when he first broke through and he has repeatedly smashed the ceiling that we as a podcast have put on him. Curiously though, he seemed to suggest afterwards that nerves had got the better of him and stopped him playing at his best.

Katie Boulter overcame a scare against American wildcard Carol Lee (who is surely the best ever tennis player born in the incredibly remote Northern Mariana Islands), dropping the second set but then roaring back to win 6-4 3-6 6-0. She will play either Karolina Muchova or Sinja Kraus next, after two days off to recover.

And Jacob Fearnley is down a break in the first set to Martin Landaluce and has already had a medical timeout… he will have an extra day to rest at least.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

• Defending champ Carlos Alcaraz will make his return to tennis after four months out (not counting the mixed doubles) when he faces Roman Safiullin at around 6pm UK time on Arthur Ashe. We all agree it’s a nightmare first match back against a Russian who can get very hot and hits very flat. Intriguing.

• Later, at much more like 3am UK time, Naomi Osaka faces Anastasia Zakharova - which is mostly interesting because the Japanese player will debut her walkout dress for the tournament, whatever that may be. It’s New York, so expect something spectacular.

• And I am torn between two for standout entertainment on Monday: Matteo Berrettini vs Stan Wawrinka (around 7pm) is a clash between two legends but Arthur Fils vs Stefanos Tsitsipas (4pm) is a bit more current. I will probably plump for the latter (if the subway runs on time) but one should be able to watch and enjoy both.

A bleary-eyed, overstimulated James Gray writes…

It is four years since I have made it across the pond to cover the US Open at Flushing Meadows. This has been down to a combination of things, including a run of late-simmer weddings, but I am very glad to be back on US soil. It’s part of a joint venture between The Tennis Unfiltered Supporters Club and The i Paper, so I am very grateful to both groups in equal measure.

I am also grateful to my very old (and very tall) friend Big Harry, whom I have known since we were nine, since he is putting me up for the three weeks in his flat in Brooklyn, an arrangement that enormously lightens the financial burden of this undertaking. Tennis is not a cheap sport to cover, and the fact I can stay with a friend an hour from Flushing makes this unlikely trip (in the current economic climate) possible.

Sorry to interrupt, but do you have any questions for the podcast? Ask them here and we’ll do our best to answer them in advance of the tennis getting underway.

Returning to New York has been strange. I was struck as I got on the 7 train to Queens how much had changed in my own life since I last set foot in Flushing: in that time, I proposed to and then married my now-wife, got a dog, I bought a flat, lost my dear Mum. It is funny how these constants - tennis tournaments that stay the same the more they change - can make you realise how quickly time in your own life slips by.

But it certainly is plus ça change at the US Open, where the $800m facelift has yet to really take effect. Certainly, the character and the ambiance of this tournament has not changed much.

The US Open is a sensory overload of colours, sights, smells, textures and sounds. If you are the kind of neurodivergent person who finds that challenging, you would probably take one look and turn back around. But then, if you live in New York, you may have developed a higher tolerance for it.

The first texture is the boardwalk that carries the majority of fans from the trains to the stadium: turn left out of Mets-Willets Point and you can trip-trap your way to the ballpark; turn right and it is the same clickety-clack but towards the tennis rather than the baseball. There are one or two concessions to the march of time, such as a smooth section in the middle to allow wheelchair users to make easy progress along it, but treading the splintered boards feels like something sports fans have done here for decades, centuries even.

Modernity takes over once you actually get into Flushing Meadows, live bands and rock tracks competing to overwhelm the hustle and bustle of expectant fans. Every 10 steps reveals a different corporate activation or sponsored bar. Reports of New York’s “Markxification” under Zohran Mamdani appear to have been wildly overstated because the US Open remains a festival of capitalism, the Glastonbury of greed, if you will.

And these impressions are formed even before a ball has been struck. Admittedly, this is fans’ week and only qualifying, but tennis is at best second fiddle. I sat and watched Heather Watson for a while on Court 5, an arena that sits in the middle of a row of three.

I struggle to believe that she could concentrate properly on her second-round clash with Angela Fita Boluda (the kind of sticky left-hander of which there are about 500 in Spain) given the surrounding noises: umpires and line calls from both adjacent courts could be heard as clearly as those pertaining to her own match; flights in and out of both LaGuardia and JFK were passing low enough to drown out everything else; a Moana singalong in the Fountain Plaza was so loud it felt like Dwayne Johnson himself was inside my own head; and the DJ on Arthur Ashe was working out just how loud the speakers in tennis’s largest arena can go.

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Then you add in the New Yorkers’ approach to watching tennis - best done loudly, with no interest in silence during points or waiting for a changeover to head out for another cocktail - and it is a wonder that players do not go entirely mad.

I am not going to be a stick in the mud and say “this isn’t tennis,” because everyone enjoyed themselves and I’m sure the players enjoy having strong crowds at qualifying. (Watson had hundreds huddled round her court for a tense deciding tie-break, which she dominated. She is now one win away from her first appearance in the singles main draw here for five years.)

And the same goes for the mixed doubles. I made my Arthur Ashe bow for the year during Monfils-Svitolina vs Cobolli-Bencic. The tennis was happening, but the food stalls outside were as busy during the shortened sets as they were between them - because no one was trying to time their exit to minimise the tennis they missed.

That is testament to the place the US Open has in America and specifically New York’s social calendar: this is a place to see and be seen, to get a snap drinking a Honey Deuce with sunset and Manhattan in the background, to try all the different fairground attractions and indulgences Flushing Meadows has to offer.

I heard a staggering statistic today from one USTA official: on Sunday, the first day of opening the gates, when there was nothing more than a few pre-qualifying matches to watch, 54,000 people came through the gates. That is 10,000 and change more than are even allowed into Wimbledon, and the tennis was still a week away at that point.

Sensory overload? Sure. But overstimulated? It appears not.

Remember, the only way to get daily podcasts from Flushing Meadows with James, Calvin, George and some special guests is to join the Tennis Unfiltered Supporters Club. It’s a few pounds/dollars/baht a month and you get the dailies, extra weekly pods outside of the slams, ad-free listening and access to our members group chats.

Please do consider joining to support the work that we do and make it viable for us to keep doing it going forward. Australia, here we come?

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James Gray writes…

I have been thinking about what I think this week, which sounds a bit like I’ve started a philosophy degree, but this won’t last as long as that.

The trigger for this period of intense reflection has been the research and production of our latest “Rewind” episode, which comes out on Friday morning, looking back at the rise (and to an extent, fall) of Boris Becker. (Tap here for the episode.)

He is still, at time of writing, the man with shortest time from top-100 debut to top-10 debut. He managed it in a little over six months.

Now Rafa Jodar is on the verge of smashing that record by several months, which prompted me to wind the clock back to 1985.

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It’s been interesting to hear takes from both sides of the North Sea about Becker and the impact he had on tennis at the time. For Calvin, his explosion into the top echelon of tennis changed the game almost overnight, while our guest Andreas Thies basically credits Becker’s Wimbledon with sparking a lifelong love for tennis - as it did for millions of Germans.

But it is impossible to talk about Boris Becker the tennis player without adding all his other epithets: bon vivant, coach, commentator, keyboard warrior, jailbird. He still cannot work in the UK because he was deported at the end of his time served in two British prisons over failure to sell significant assets to pay creditors when he went bankrupt.

Even before that, his reputation was already a patchwork of good, bad and ugly. If he came up in conversation with my late mother, she would always mention the “baby in a cupboard” incident, a front-page scandal which involved a brief copulation with Russian waitress Angela Ermakova in the closet of famed Japanese restaurant Nobu in London. (Oh, and this was while Becker’s pained and pregnant wife had checked herself into hospital, thinking she might be entering premature labour at 30 weeks.) Meanwhile, Ermakova had a baby girl nine months later, the paternity of whom Becker eventually accepted. “I will learn to love her,” was how he termed it publicly. Yes, really. (She is now a celebrity in her own right and recently won Germany’s version of Strictly Come Dancing.)

The cupboard affair was right at the end of Bori’s playing career, and the next three decades have been a rollercoaster of financial failure, coaching success with Novak Djokovic, and no shortage of controversial quotes. Everyone in tennis has their favourite Boris story, and it’s a poor reflection on him that many of them could easily be told about his namesake Johnson - although I don’t know about if the former Prime Minister has ever been to Nobu.

So what you think of Boris Becker depends on many things: when you were born, whether you lived through his summer of ’85, your position on monogamy (he does not believe men were built for it), which TV channel you watch tennis on, and whether you are able to separate the art from the man. In the modern era it is increasingly difficult for people to do so.

Personally, I see him as a slightly ghoulish and quite sad caricature. Someone who knew Boris well once said to me, “His main problem is he tries to do everything himself - except when he doesn’t, in which case he tends to find the worst person in the world for the job.” He went on to explain that Boris probably wasn’t a bad egg per se, but he was not very intelligent and relentlessly naive. Quickly, he became a well-known mark for opportunists who thought they could exploit his fame for profit.

His social media is a constant reminder of his lack of guile. He would do well to remember the old maxim: “Better have the whole world think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

I rather fear there is little doubt left.

What do you think of Boris Becker? Let us know in the comments, and make sure you join the Tennis Unfiltered Supporters Club to support the podcast, get access to our special episode about Becker, enjoy ad-free listening and so much more.

To extend my Dickensian plagiarism, it was the spring of hope, or the winter of despair. (Depending on your point of view.)

Just now as it was when Charles Dickens wrote it, the shape of history depends on the angle from which it is viewed.

Perhaps you see the accession of Alexander Zverev to the position of grand slam champion, which can never now be taken away from him, as the arrival of a new force in the top echelon of the game. At last, someone to challenge the duopoly of Sincaraz, even if he toppled neither Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz en route. Zverev, a different player entirely from either, adds a third string tennis’s instrument, whose music was becoming distinctly two note.

Or perhaps you see it as the darkest result possible, that Zverev’s victory is a triumph of evil over good, of darkness over light. It is the successful completion of a whitewash that began years ago, an attempt to airbrush the image of a man who was too big to fail, and that tennis is now happy to overlook his faults because he is successful.

The complications arise from abuse allegations made by two of Zverev’s ex-girlfriends, Olya Sharypova and Brenda Patea, the second of whom is the mother of his child. Sharypova’s were investigated by the ATP but no further action was taken. Patea’s entered the German legal system but were eventually settled by the pair out of court. No guilt was ever implied by either investigation, and Zverev has always denied the allegations.

But they were both made public, and have doubtless coloured his reputation - just as have his behaviour towards umpires and line judges on the court, his dismissive and sometimes abrasive manner with TV presenters or reporters, and the string of coaches who have either quit or been fired after falling out with him on the practice court (if they hung around long enough for the eternally late German to turn up).

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He was true to form on Sunday night, initially advertised for a 9.15pm press conference that eventually started an hour later. It says a lot about his popularity, or lack thereof, in the press room that tournament organisers practically had to force journalists to ask a few more questions in English to make their champion’s press conference look good. It is not personal: there are plenty of players we don’t like but whose conferences we pack out. It is simply that Zverev does not move the needle in the same way that others do.

And at this moment in time, it is important to show all sides of Zverev. It is not practical to make every article or podcast produced centre around the allegations that have dogged his life for the last five years, but at moments of such high interest, it is right that they are stated, not least because for many of you reading and listening, it is all you can think about when you see or hear him.

But it is also true that a great many people think Zverev is great. There were lots of Germany flags on Philippe Chatrier today, and plenty did more than applaud politely when he was called to pick up the trophy. It was notable though that the acclaim was not universal - while plucky, eminently likeable Flavio Cobolli’s echoed around the arena before he could even open his mouth.

And on top of everything, it should be added that Zverev is a difficult man to like. Believe or don’t believe the other things, but he certainly is an arresting character, whose jokes often don’t land and who seems ready to take offence at every corner. “Charmless,” one reporter described him as to me this week, and I found it hard to argue with. Doubtless he can be charming, but he is yet to have such an effect on me.

“So young and talented, it’s annoying.”

I think we can all relate to Maja Chwalinska, who spoke like a veteran of grand slam finals after losing her very first one to Mirra Andreeva.

At only 19, Andreeva looks like a complete tennis player, with a sensational backhand, strong serving, touch in the forecourt, athleticism behind the baseline and a mental resilience that seems to have become impenetrable. It is easy to say this after she has won her maiden grand slam but she looks like this is the first of many.

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There is no need for an asterisk - you can only beat those in front of you - but we should note that Andreeva has been given a relatively straightforward route through the draw. Four of her opponents were ranked outside the top 100, including qualifier Chwalinska who froze badly under the pressure of a major final. She will probably never play another one but if she does, she will be hard pressed to warm up and start with less touch and feel for the occasion than she had on Saturday night.

Andreeva looked nervous too, a huge favourite for the title and playing against a uniquely awkward opponent. The obvious strategy against a moon ball is to step in and take it early, hitting it flat back where it came from, but on more than one occasion in the first four games, all against serve, the Russian was drawn into returning loopy fire with loopy yfire, balls travelling from baseline to baseline like an Under-15s club match. It was not edifying. It was mildly absorbing, but the prospect of three sets was not a pleasant one.

Fortunately, Andreeva found a way. The wind did not make it easy, kicking clay up as far as the press box (my laptop is still recovering) and more than once blinding both players, as well as keeping Andreeva’s first serve percentage below 60 in the first set. But once she adjusted, she looked assured and almost bagged a second-set bagel once she added a load of margin to the serve.

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Andreeva will have far tougher tests in grand slam finals, clearly, and will face tougher questions too. Although I did admire the cool, calm and collected way she handled a question on the Russia of it all afterwards, opening with, “I think every person doesn’t want to have a war in the world” before moving onto the ubiquitous line about just playing tennis. She is a 19-year-old tennis player and could easily have left out the first bit. I choose to believe that is a line she has added in herself.

And it is worth noting, as we did in today’s pod, that Andreeva is coached by a woman, Conchita Martinez, no less. The great untold story of the WTA Tour is that a huge number of male coaches are in relationships with their female charges, an open secret in the locker room. It is not healthy for a professional sport often played and won by women under the age of 18. Were more women encouraged and enabled to work in the women’s game as coaches, it would certainly not be so prevalent - so I am happy to celebrate the amazing relationship between Martinez and Andreeva.

A crazy tournament perhaps deserved a crazier champion, but Andreeva is certainly crazy talented. So much so it’s annoying.

Highlight of the day

When Maja Chwalinska was still warming up, her name was being chanted around Philippe Chatrier by thousands of Polish fans in red and white, who had perhaps bought tickets in the expectation of watching Iga Swiatek. But they were no less enthusiastic, and Chwalinska could barely get a ball in the court as they sang her name to the rafters. She did not play well, but she will treasure that feeling of support and love forever, no doubt.

What to watch tomorrow (times BST)

• 2pm: Alexander Zverev vs Flavio Cobolli. Duh.

As the tournament rolls down to two singles matches a day (at most), so we roll back our daily newsletter.

If you want to hear from Calvin Betton on how Henry Patten and Harri Heliovaara reached No 1, or Eleanor Crooks about the new Emma Raducanu, then do listen to our grand slam daily podcast.

Women’s semi-final day did not go the way we thought it might, with the prospect of an all-Russian (i.e. neutral) final vanquished by Maja Chwalinska, who may yet be the best story of the French Open.

The Pole played junior grand slams as Iga Swiatek’s doubles partner, but never kicked on in the way that she did, grinding away at the lower levels of the tour and eventually hitting the wall: in 2021, she decided she needed a break from tennis and walked away not knowing if she would come back.

Fortunately, she did - and her game of demon slice backhands, moon ball forehands and devilish drop shots has earned her nine wins so far. One more would earn her a grand slam title in the vein of Emma Raducanu.

In fact, it would be more unlikely than Raducanu’s, since the Brit had reached the fourth round of Wimbledon only two months before winning the US Open: two months ago, Chwalinska lost to world No 180 Jessika Ponchet in the quarter-finals of a second-tier event near France’s Spanish border. If Raducanu’s win came out of the blue, this run to the final has come out of the deepest dark.

She should lose to No 8 seed Mirra Andreeva, the 19-year-old who has only dropped one set en route to her first grand slam final and who played a solid game in the face of Marta Kostyuk’s semi-final meltdown. The Ukrainian was impressively philosophical about her self-inflicted storm of unforced errors that bombed her out of a first ever grand slam semi-final, and worst of all to a Russian. But she says she does not play the player on the other side of the net - and will remember the support of the Roland Garros crowd forever.

“I will never forget the ovations I received after my match in quarter-finals,” she told me in press.

“This is something I will carry with me forever. I will never believe anyone who is at the world stage of this sport saying they have zero influence or anything, because I experienced this myself.”

The tennis world is still behind the Ukrainians, four years and counting into this horrid war.

Men’s seeds out: No 4 Felix Auger-Aliassime (lost to Flavio Cobolli)

It is hard to believe that the two top seeds in this event have not even made it to the semi-finals. In fact, this is the first grand slam event since 1977 where there is no former major champion in either the men’s or the women’s singles last four. “Chance,” as Opta Ace put it, and there’s never been a better one.

Maybe that opportunity weighed heavy on Sabalenka, whose question for a grand slam in Paris goes on despite having reached the quarter-final, two semi-finals and a final here. That final last year was on her racket and she freely claimed afterwards that had she played anywhere near her usual standard, she would have won. Coco Gauff was the “lucky” one on that day and today it was Diana Shnaider.

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But the Russian played her part too. She is one of the very few lefties in the upper echelons of the women’s game - Sabalenka has only faced one other since the US Open last year - and her reach and resilience on the forehand wing was an answer the Sabalenka backhand to which she had few answers in the latter stages.

It cannot be ignored though that the Belarusian blew this one. She was twice two points away from victory when serving at 5-4 in the second, but lost 10 games in a row to crash out.

“Just want to quit tennis right now,” Sabalenka said afterwards. “But we’ll see.”

Highlights of the day

When Sabalenka is playing well, I still love watching the raw power she produces, and before it all went wrong there were some spectacular winners. One in the second set came so out of nowhere that I involuntarily yelped, startling the couple in front of me in the punters’ seats. It was a real “sod this” kind of forehand from a fairly tight rally that suggested she was starting to get frustrated with the match. Far worse was to come.

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It’s not a highlight, more a lowlight, but you have to admire Matteo Berrettini’s fighting spirit. Down a set and break, and unable to change direction properly, he was desperate not to quit. His box shook their heads and signalled for him to stop. He walked so slowly to his bench, desperate not to retire on his great childhood friend Matteo Arnaldi, but he had to. Sad to see Berrettini go like this, but I really was surprised he made it this far without bigger issues.

Maja Chwalinska was understandably emotional at sealing her place in a first ever grand slam semi-final at a tournament she was hoping to qualify for with three wins. Five more wins later and she is two from “doing a Raducanu” and winning as a qualifier. How will she do it? Winding her opponents up with slice. “I’m aware that it can be very annoying for other players.”

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

• 10am: Patten/Heliovaara vs Hugues-Herbert/Halys

• 11am: Erani/Vavassori vs King/Dabrowski

• Not before 2pm: Marta Kostyuk vs Mirra Andreeva

• Followed by: Diana Shnaider vs Maja Chwalinska

Men’s seeds out: No 27 Rafa Jodar (lost to Alexander Zverev), No 28 Joao Fonseca (lost to Jakub Mensik)

The day time caught up with the youngsters. Two teenagers played quarter-finals on Tuesday at Roland Garros and both lost, which we perhaps should have expected. But their emergence for the first time in the second week of a grand slam will have shockwaves throughout the tennis world - as will that of “veteran” 20-year-old Jakub Mensik.

Joao Fonseca, as George will gladly tell you, might be the most entertaining player on the planet right now. There is more than a hint of the Carlos Alcaraz about the 19-year-old Brazilian, who combines fearsome baseline ball-speed with a lovely drop shot and a tracer-bullet serve. He also loves a big moment, of which Mensik was reminded on six occasions in the third set before the Czech finally sealed the match at the seventh time of asking.

Fonseca’s flaw is that he is currently a bit of a blunt instrument, who sees trouble ahead and doubles down on pace and power. I asked Calvin if he thought the Brazilian’s legs had gone, and that’s why he couldn’t unload in the same way against Mensik. No, he explained, it’s just that Mensik hits the ball harder and flatter than Novak Djokovic and Casper Ruud.

And that might also explain why Mensik’s purple patches can appear out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly. He won Miami last March, just over a year ago, and didn’t win four matches in a row again until January and the title in Auckland. This year, he has lost to four different players ranked 40 or worse, but also beat Jannik Sinner in Doha, a feat almost no one has managed.

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He may not beat Alexander Zverev, a tall order for his first ever grand slam semi-final, but he has already earned his stripes en route. And after watching him go from wheelchair to last four, I am writing off nothing.

Highlights of the day

I don’t think I’ve seen as many apologies in a tennis match as there were between Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina. On more than one occasion, I had to ask those around me in the Chatrier media seats what they were apologising for. “Winning,” came one wry answer. Heavy irony is the common tongue of most press boxes. But the real highlight of this high-quality match came afterwards, when a tearful Kostyuk cried “Slava Ukraine” in the wake of another night of heavy bombing in her hometown of Kyiv and was greeted by a full 40 seconds of applause around Court Philippe Chatrier. Genuinely moving.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Mirra Andreeva managed to name-check Snoop Dogg in her post-match interview, specifically when asked why she thanks herself in on-court speeches. “At first I just saw Snoop Dogg saying it. The first few times, I kind of borrowed the idea from him as a joke. Then I realised it was true.” It’s hard to imagine that The Next Episode, the semi-final between these two women from two warring countries, will be anything like light-hearted.

My final highlight? Jakub Mensik’s net play. I hope someone does a super-cut of those forehand volleys. Things of beauty.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

10am: Anna Kalinskaya vs Maja Chwalinska

Followed by: Aryna Sabalenka vs Diana Shnaider

Followed by: Felix Auger-Aliassime vs Flavio Cobolli

7.15pm: Matteo Berrettini vs Matteo Arnaldi

Men’s seeds out: No 19 Frances Tiafoe (lost to Matteo Arnaldi)

If this French Open has proved anything it is that Calvin is right - and I don’t say that lightly.

He often bemoans the social media accounts of the tours for only promoting Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner when there are so many other stars in the game who can capture fans’ imagination.

Neither Alcaraz or Sinner will feature in the men’s quarter-finals of this French Open, and yet, I cannot remember being more excited for a set of matches.

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So too in the women’s where only really Aryna Sabalenka could be regarded as a superstar. But there is an all-Ukrainian quarter-final, a retiring player in the form of her life, one of the most engaging young players on either tour and a qualifier with no grand slam record to speak of somehow in the last eight.

Maybe some of those matches won’t engage the massive audience is back home that we would all like them to. But for tennis fans like you and me, I think this is about as good a tournament as you could wish for I have no idea who’s gonna win, but I think we’re all going to have a lot of fun finding out.

Highlights of the day

The women’s night match delivered, and proved it did not have to be a long encounter to be a good one (although 87 minutes I think is close to the perfect length of tennis match): Naomi Osaka strutted out in another amazing outfit, the two four-time slam champions hit 59 winners between them, and Aryna Sabalenka delighted the crowd by moonwalking to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They finished at one minute to 10, and everyone got out before the last metro, perhaps even with a glass of something on the way. There is something satisfying about watching a match to its conclusion - something few manage when a five-setter is still going at 2am.

Frances Tiafoe has made getting better on clay a real mission of his over the few years, and it is starting to pay off, having won seven matches at Roland Garros in 2025 and 2026 combined. There have been no shortage of five-setters in there either, but he couldn’t pull off another one in the small hours. I did love him slipping over mid-point, failing to get up, and still swinging a racket at the ball as it bounced agonisingly out of reach.

Osaka is a must-watch at press conferences these days, having previously been so riddled with self-doubt and anxiety that she could barely get through them. Monday’s highlights included “hitting a ball doesn’t really matter on earth”, “obviously she’s really good for tennis, I would hope I’m okay for tennis, too” and “I think that they [fans] are just happy regardless watching sports”.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

• 10am: Mirra Andreeva vs Sorana Cirstea

• Followed by: Elina Svitolina vs Marta Kostyuk

• Followed by: Rafa Jodar vs Alexander Zverev

• 7.15pm: Jakub Mensik vs Joao Fonseca

Men’s seeds out: No 11 Andrey Rublev (lost to Jakub Mensik)

I think Joao Fonseca has reignited something in me when it comes to men’s tennis. That’s not to say I had become bored of it, not at all, but every slam becoming a countdown to Sincaraz has been a bit tedious, I think most people would admit.

The final would often be excellent (take last year’s Roland Garros showdown) but the lack of jeopardy in the preceding 13 or 14 days was a real challenge for anyone who wanted to get excited about the men’s draw. Now with no Sinner, Alcaraz or Djokovic, and two young bucks both in their first grand slam quarterfinals, I am so invested in the men’s.

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And while I shouldn’t have favourites, Fonseca is electric to watch. There is something about his arm speed on the forehand that is almost hypnotic. At one point he swung at a ball like Casper Ruud had just pitched a fast ball right over the plate and Fonseca was trying to clear the wall at Yankee Stadium. (Is that a long hit? I don’t know, I don’t really baseball. But I assume most home runs are quite long hits.) The noise off the racket is terrifying and the result often is too. That Ruud got a set off him is a testament to how well the Norwegian is playing. That he lost is a testament to how well Fonseca played the big moments, and how Ruud didn’t.

You can say that Djokovic’s legs went and that Ruud got tight in the big moments, and those may both be true. But at some point you have to say that Fonseca was there to beat them, and that others might have shrunk from the chance. I don’t know that I have seen Fonseca shrink from anything yet.

Highlights of the day

How is Jakub Mensik still even standing, never mind winning tennis matches? After getting wheeled from the court after his second-round win and then bageled in the first set of the third, he is now into the quarter-finals after winning another five-setter, this time over perennial bridesmaid Andrey Rublev. This was one of those “draw falls apart, random winner” slams that Rublev should be hoping he can win one day. Truthfully, he was once again never in contention.

“To me she’s just slapping balls, she’s not hitting them with feel.” So often when all-time great Chris Evert is on commentary, she says something I find instructive or interesting. This time, she was fleshing out the Calvin Betton theory that Iga Swiatek lets matches go, for whatever reason, after going behind. She lost the second set to Marta Kostyuk 6-1 and seemed to have no ability to problem-solve. She admitted afterwards she felt very tense and did not know how to deal with it. That is a big problem that needs a big solution. She could do worse than ask 18-time champion Chrissie for some advice.

It beggars belief that it has taken the organisers three years to put women back on the night session, but they could not resist Sabalenka vs Osaka. I wrote my own piece about how this token gesture does not wipe the slate clean of sexism, but I liked Ben Rothenberg’s point for Bounces: at least when they stuck to best-of-five matches they had a cogent excuse, and now they are just saying that every time they looked at the women’s draw, they decided it wasn’t up to it.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

• Around 11.30am: Madison Keys vs Diana Shnaider

• Around 4pm: Frances Tiafoe vs Matteo Arnaldi

• 7.30pm: Naomi Osaka vs Aryna Sabalenka (They will walk out at 7.15pm, and you won’t want to miss what Osaka is wearing.)

Men’s seeds out: No 18 Learner Tien (lost to Flavio Cobolli), No 25 Francisco Cerundolo (lost to Zachary Svajda), No 31 Brandon Nakashima (lost to Felix Auger-Aliassime)

Oleksandra Oliynykova is not a name I expected to say or write very much in this tournament. If I am completely honest, I think I had only heard it once before Roland Garros - because Emma Raducanu beat her in Cluj earlier this year. But she has made a name for herself by standing up for her country, as so many from Ukraine have before. Not everyone agrees with the strength of her language, but she certainly has a way with words.

Before playing Russia’s Diana Shnaider, she called her a “monster” for playing a Gazprom-sponsored tournament in her home country, and liking pro-Putin propaganda on social media. Afterwards, she came to her press conference with a prepared speech.

“Our organisation was not built by pioneers like Billie Jean King so that money and luxury could become the only values in women’s tennis. They wanted something bigger than that. They wanted us to have a voice, to inspire others to make the world better, to be role models for young athletes.

“Being a role model is not about the size of your bank account. It’s not about expensive watches, private jets, or luxury brands. A real role model has the courage to stand against evil. A real role model speaks when it’s easier to stay silent. A real role model has the determination to act when action is needed. We as players have responsibility that goes beyond tennis, because sports should always stand with humanity, and humanity should never be optional.”

Highlights of the day

Having had a contender - nay, favourite - for match of the year in the men’s match on Friday, the women’s draw produced one of its own on Saturday lunchtime. Naomi Osaka, in a third slightly different prematch outfit of the tournament, had a ding-dong with rising star Iva Jovic. Osaka outlasted her opponent to set up an absolute humdinger of a fourth-round clash with Aryna Sabalenka. Will that match finally convince Amelie Mauresmo to put a women’s match into the night session for the first time in three years?

It’s hard not to root for Matteo Berrettini, particularly when you are sat as I was next to 20 Italians desperately looking for something to pay their hotel bills now that Jannik Sinner is out. The world’s most beautiful man put them through it too, with oohs, aahs and even one hilariously stereotypical “mamma mia” providing an excellent commentary while I was trying to write something meaningful about Ukraine. He did it eventually though, converting his fourth match point and sobbing on court in happiness. The way the draw is, you wouldn’t bet against him making the final.

I tend to think wearing a football shirt as a grown-up is a bit feeble, unless you’re actually going to the game. But fair play if you’re willing to risk getting actually beaten up by wearing an Arsenal shirt in Boulogne on Saturday. However, be prepared to get picked up on camera, showed on the big screen and booed by 8,000 Parisians on Court Suzanne Lenglen. It, er, did not get better for him.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

11am: Iga Świątek vs Marta Kostyuk

Around 2.30pm: Mirra Andreeva vs Jil Teichmann

7.30pm: Casper Ruud vs Joao Fonseca

Men’s seeds out: No 3 Novak Djokovic (lost to Joao Fonseca), No 8 Alex de Minaur (lost to Jakub Mensik), No 13 Karen Khachanov (lost to Jesper de Jong??), No 24 Tommy Paul (lost to Casper Ruud)

I could write an entire book about Novak Djokovic’s defeat to Joao Fonseca and all its twists and turns, but you’ll have to listen to the podcast to hear what I thought about it, and my view from the stands.

Instead, I thought I had better write about a remarkable row. Who knew that a one-foot wedge of foam at the back of the court with the word “LACOSTE” would prove to be the source of such controversy?

I am not belittling Zeynep Sonmez’s unfortunate exit from the second round of the doubles or the two stitches in her knee, but thankfully it is a relatively minor injury for what could have been so much worse. Katie Boulter escaped injury entirely when she collided with one on Court 13 on Thursday, but it does keep happening.

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I was reminded of David Nalbandian, who ill-advisedly kicked a similar sponsor board at Queen’s 14 years ago, injuring a line judge and earning him a default in the final, as the only other time these little hoardings became part of the story.

In this case, the tournament have reacted quickly, saying they will adjust the court layout in time for play to start on Saturday. I’ll be in early to see what they do - I wonder if they will mirror Wimbledon in moving the covers to the side, which would seem logical.

Highlights of the day

Frances Tiafoe says he knew about Sinner’s downfall even before he finished his own match. After he went two sets to one up, a fan ran down towards him shouting: “Sinner is out, Big Foe is in!”. Tiafoe was busy trying to see off Hubert Hurkacz, which he eventually did in the longest match of his career at four hours and 43 minutes, but it was a close run thing. Jeff Sackmann (Tennis Abstract) gives Tiafoe a less than three per cent chance of winning this tournament - but he is the 7th-highest ranked player left in and does not seem to mind the heat. Perhaps the field will come towards him.

The French Tennis Federation (FFT) are famous for their laissez-faire approach to comms, preferring to let something play out than try to control the message, brief journalists or send out a statement. So imagine my shock when Friday heralded not one but two different statements - one on the aforementioned hoarding-gate and the other on Adolfo Vallejo’s criticism of Aurelie Tourte, insisting it should have been a man umpiring his defeat to Moise Kouame, because a man would have been able to control the crowd. “How dare he,” Britain’s BJK Cup captain Anne Keothavong rightly roared on TNT Sports, and the FFT agreed. Before they have even formally fined him, they notified journalists that they would “impose a significant sanction” and that “the competence of an umpire is not determined by their gender, but by their professionalism and ability to officiate at the highest level”. Fair play, chapeau.

Rafa Jodar pushed a ballkid over! Well, actually he didn’t, but boy if you watch the video once it really, really, really does look like he did. We had a VAR review on Brit Row (the part of the press centre where all the journalists from the UK get billeted) and after a frame-by-frame analysis, we concluded the ballkid tripped on the covers trying to get out of the way of Jodar and he also gestured to his coach, which made it look like he pushed the kid over. Added to that, he had been getting progressively more bad-tempered with the ballkids for being slow with his ice towel, but he said afterwards he would never push one over - and I believe him. It would have been the biggest fine in grand slam history if he had, I reckon.

Brit-watch

I’m now firmly on the Henry Patten train, and he won not once but twice on Friday, in men’s and in mixed. And we all know how much Calvin loves the mixed. But it was bad news for Cashpool, the all-British No 3 seeds, as they lost to Pavlasek-Rikl in the second round to crash out of the men’s.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

10am: Naomi Osaka vs Iva Jovic

Around 11am: Flavio Cobolli vs Learner Tien

Around 11am: Diana Shnaider vs Oleksandra Oliynykova

Men’s seeds out: No 1 seed Jannik Sinner (lost to Juan Manuel Cerundolo), No 5 seed Ben Shelton (lost to Raphael Collignon), No 14 seed Luciano Darderi (lost to Francisco Comesana), No 22 Arthur Rinderknech (lost to Matteo Berrettini)

It wasn’t the heat, Jannik Sinner insisted, having suffered from the most obvious case of heat exhaustion in history on Philippe Chatrier on Thursday, cramping all over the shop, nearly vomiting on the court and barely hobbling his way through the last two sets.

He instead claimed the cumulative effect of a long clay-court swing (that is what happens when you keep winning) and not feeling great when he woke up in the morning. Aye right, as they say in Scotland.

The truth is Sinner has a clear problem with extreme heat, having now suffered badly with it in two consecutive grand slams. He also got caught out in Shanghai last year, where the humidity is oppressive.

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Thursday’s conditions were less draining than that on paper, with humidity in the 30s, but Calvin was on court for Henry Patten and Harri Heliovaara’s first-round match and insists it was “brutally hot” - although they were on Court 10 where the seats are basically just white concrete and create a real heat trap.

Nevertheless, Sinner is trying to hide this weakness because - unlike his previous lack of drop shot or weak serving - this is not a problem he knows how to fix. He must find a solution, because the world is only getting warmer.

Highlights of the day

Frances Tiafoe says he knew about Sinner’s downfall even before he finished his own match. After he went two sets to one up, a fan ran down towards him shouting: “Sinner is out, Big Foe is in!”. Tiafoe was busy trying to see off Hubert Hurkacz, which he eventually did in the longest match of his career at four hours and 43 minutes, but it was a close run thing. Jeff Sackmann (Tennis Abstract) gives Tiafoe a less than three per cent chance of winning this tournament - but he is the 10^th-highest ranked player left in and does not seem to mind the heat. Perhaps the field will come towards him.

Remember where you were the first time you heard the name Moise Kouame (pronounced mo-EASE koo-AHM-ey). He has just become the youngest male player to reach the third round of a major since Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon 2003, having only turned 17 in March. He conducts the crowd, he “gets the pump out” as Calvin would say, and he makes a whole lot of ridiculous balls. His London-born coach Liam Smith says he is a remarkably mature young man - and clearly has a big future.

Serena Williams is coming back, I’m told, and wants a doubles wildcard for Queen’s. She is rumoured to be playing with Victoria Mboko, who did her best not to confirm her role in the comeback - but could not hide her excitement. “I’m very happy. Me and Serena have stayed in touch, which is really, really nice, because I really look up to her. The fact that she even knows me is very, it’s very exciting.”

Brit-watch

The British challenge for the singles title (well, just for singles survival, realistically) is over for another year. Katie Boulter battled bravely on a surface that is just so alien to her the French Open might as well be played on parmesan, but Anastasia Potapova played a higher level. Grass remains Boulter’s best chance of a big grand slam run, but it bears repeating she has still never made the fourth round of a major.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

Around 12.30pm: Mirra Andreeva vs Marie Bouzkova

Around 1.30pm: Alex de Minaur vs Jakub Mensik

Third on Chatrier so perhaps around 3pm: Novak Djokovic vs Joao Fonseca

Men’s seeds out: No 21 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (lost to Thiago Tirante), No 32 Ugo Humbert (lost to Quentin Halys)

It is starting to feel like Ukraine’s tournament on the women’s side. On Sunday, I wrote about how tennis had forgotten about the invasion of their country - and now its daughters are doing their best to remind everyone.

Wednesday truly was Ukraine’s day, a sword day, a red day! Sorry, I got my Tolkien on. But it truly is a performance of epic proportions from the Ukrainian women - whether it was Elina Svitolina finding the best version of herself to cruise into round three, Marta Kostyuk shrugging off the missiles dropping metres from her family’s house and an early on-court setback to do the same, or Yuliia Starodubtseva, who has not been home in four years because her home now stands in Russian-occupied territory, knocking out the world No 2 Elena Rybakina.

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War aside, Starodubtseva also lit up the press room with a tale of how her coach/boyfriend had promised to propose if she reaches top 50.

He probably did not expect to go ring-shopping in Paris, but if she beats qualifier Wang Xiyu, he will have to start thinking about it.

Don’t propose on court though, she cautioned. I’m not sure clay is the surface for going down on one knee anyway.

Highlights of the day

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, as I am often prone to saying on the podcast, is addicted to drama. So it was almost unsurprising to hear that he had parted ways with his coach Mariano Puerta between his first and second-round matches. It was more remarkable to hear afterwards that Puerta had told ADF that he was going back to his hotel to cool down after practice on Tuesday, and then sent him a very long message saying it was over before promptly hopping on a flight to Miami. “I heard that he did the same with a couple of other players in the past. Seems normal for him,” said a baffled Davidovich Fokina, who lost to Thiago Tirante and will now head to the grass without Puerta in tow. “I thought he was a very good person and after I discovered that he did this a couple of times before with other players, I said ‘Ok, it was my fault to hire him.’”

Is this the worst match point miss in tennis history? Karen Khachanov can laugh about it now but he would not have been laughing if he had blown the fourth-set tie-break against Marco Trungelitti, who even in his long career cannot have seen a worse overhead than the Russian’s attempt to seal victory. Khachanov plays lucky loser Jesper De Jong next, and the Dutchman is already practising his lobs.

When Rafael Jodar was receiving a medical timeout and Joao Fonseca was two sets down, I was worried for the future of the tournament. Two young guns with charisma for days and a real chance to make an impact in this draw, yet both looked like fizzling out on the first Wednesday. “First week guys,” one message read. Yet Jodar rallied to win in four, and Fonseca sealed an incredible comeback with a forehand winner, a Brazilian roar and tears on the baseline. Can’t help but love this kid.

Brit-watch

Fran Jones was the only Brit in singles action on Wednesday and she started tentatively against Marie Bouzkova, by her own admission. She dropped the first set 6-0 and was always playing catch up after that. She did have chances to win the second set but was pegged back to a tie-break and did not quite have enough to overcome the No 27 seed. It was interesting though afterwards to hear Jones, who has just seven toes due to a birth defect, talk about the customised insoles she wears in her tennis shoes in order to allow her to play, and how the podiatrist that all the Barcelona players also use is the man who helped her develop it.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

10am: Naomi Osaka vs Donna Vekic (walk-outs in particular, but also just two “big drama show” players)

Last on Court 14, around 4pm: Matteo Arnaldi vs Stefanos Tsitsipas

7.30pm: Arthur Rinderknech vs Matteo Berrettini

Men’s seeds out: No 6 Daniil Medvedev (lost to Adam Walton), No 9 Alexander Bublik (lost to Jan-Lennard Struff), No 20 Cam Norrie (retired against Adolfo Daniel Vallejo), No 29 Tallon Griekspoor (lost to Matteo Arnaldi), No 30 Corentin Moutet (lost to Vit Kopriva)

Regular listeners to the podcast will know that George has his own ranking system in his head governed predominantly by who he would like to be in the top 10 - and Naomi Osaka is a perennial nominee.

And as a couple of TUSCers said in the group chat on Patreon she does bring eyeballs. Years ago she tried to hide away from them, but now she plays up to them: and when she walked out on Suzanne Lenglen, she had a double reveal.

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First was the black corset and skirt number, which she then removed to reveal her tennis outfit, a bronze-coloured, besequined dress that glistened in the midday sun.

You might think that such pageantry has to be earned and is ill-fitting for the No 16 seed. But a multiple grand slam champion, a former world No 1 and a global icon, she maintains that image with her pre-match theatrics.

Of course, it helps when you win in straight sets, as she did over tricky first-round opponent Laura Siegmund. Let’s hope she has five or six pre-match outfits, and gets the chance to display them.

Highlights of the day

Daniil Medvedev was having a hard time on Suzanne Lenglen, shouting at the umpire, the gods, his box and anyone who was listening or not. Adam Walton wouldn’t go away, and neither would his wife, who told him: “It’s hot for everybody. Everybody is suffering. You need to behave!” He replied angrily: “I start finding the court I’ll start to behave.” He did not start finding the court, and serving at 4-5 in the fifth he threw in the worst service game imaginable, including a drop-shot into the bottom of the net and a double-fault to be broken to love and beaten. (H/t to @AnnaK_4ever on Twitter for the translation.)

Coco Gauff is Florida born and raised but even she is struggling with the heat. ”Y’all don’t like AC,” she complained about the European way of life. “I feel like I’m constantly trying to, even at restaurants, everywhere, I’m sweating, I’m taking four showers a day. Even, like, the coolers on court, the drinks don’t get cold. I think I’m going to have to request more ice for the next match.” She even went so far as to putting her spare rackets in the cooler. Well, whatever works. And she beat Taylor Townsend 6-4, 6-0 so it clearly works.

And finally a personal moment: when I was watching Jacob Fearnley take on Juan Manuel Cerundolo (see below), they changed line judges. One of the guys who came out was in a motorised wheelchair, and also carried a microphone and speaker to make his voice heard. I don’t want to patronise anyone, but that was a moment of equality that I found quite moving. In the UK, it felt like health and safety would have stopped him calling the line on a brutally hot day. He was perfect though, even under challenge from a player at one point. Fair blooming play.

Brit-watch

Not a great day for the Brits. Cam Norrie had warned fairly obviously in his press conference that he would be struggling to overcome a rib injury, and so it proved when he pulled out of the second set. He questioned afterwards whether a five-hour five-setter with Ben Shelton just before travelling to Geneva for the tournament there was such a good idea - although Calvin said on the daily pod that he was surprised more players didn’t. The British No 1 now faces scans and a race against time to be fit for Wimbledon.

And the aforementioned Fearnley never really got going in very slow conditions against a clay-court specialist in Cerundolo Jr, throwing in too many double faults and struggling to make his big forehand count in a straight-sets defeat.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

11am: Alejandro Davidovich Fokina vs Thiago Tirante

Around 1pm: Nuno Borges vs Miomir Kecmanovic

Around 1pm: Fran Jones vs Marie Bouzkova

7.30pm: Alexander Zverev vs Tomas Machac

Men’s seeds out: No 12 Jiri Lehecka (lost to Pablo Carreno Busta)

I really do think that 25 May 2026 will go down as the day Rafa Jodar announced himself to tennis in earnest. The scoreline by which he beat Aleksandar Kovacevic - 6-1, 6-0, 6-4 - is so one-sided that you would expect nothing can be drawn from such a battering, that Kovacevic had torn a hamstring and was manfully struggling through to avoid withdrawing or something similar.

But when the winner is a 19-year-old who is playing in his first Roland Garros main draw, you have to sit up and take notice. He didn’t just play his way into it - he turned up, stamped his name in round two and strode off into the baking hot afternoon with minimal sweat broken.

“I’m not in a rush at all,” he insisted. He could have fooled me.

Anyone who has been paying attention in tennis already knows Jodar and most of them believe the hype. Those who don’t will be playing catch-up with the bandwagon soon enough. Those who do will be saying, “I told you so” quite soon. Maybe as soon as next week.

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Highlights of the day

It was hard not to say “here we go again” on Chatrier late on Monday, or “c’est rebelote” as the French might say, when Gael Monfils mounted a comeback from two sets down. 12 months ago, we had marvelled as the Monfils show was extended despite trailing 2-0 to Hugo Dellien, the Frenchman winning the next three sets to charge into round two. But all good things must come to an end and he did not have enough in the tank to win the fifth set against Hugo Gaston, who apologetically celebrated ending his countryman’s Roland Garros career. It was after midnight, but the French had a show planned and they brought out Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Richard Gasquet, and Gilles Simon, France’s modern-day Four Musketeers, reunited on Chatrier once more. A dry eye? None to be seen.

A journalist is on an unfortunate hat-trick after making her second player of the tournament cry. The reporter, whom we are not naming, inadvertently got Emma Raducanu crying during her post-match presser on Sunday. And on Monday, Zheng Qinwen was holding it together until the same journalist asked her a fairly innocuous question in the wake of her 6-4, 6-0 loss to Maja Chwalinska - and the Chinese player promptly blubbed. We cannot solely blame the line of questioning: defeat means Zheng will drop out of the top 100 after Roland Garros.

Brit-watch

It was not high-quality but it was high-drama as Katie Boulter booked her place in the second round, beating American wildcard Akasha Urhobo. The 19-year-old on grand slam main draw debut fought back from a set down to force a decider, and even broke back when Boulter served for the match in the third, only to lose it a game later and seal her fate. In total, the pair shared 93 unforced errors and only 54 winners. The Brit will need much more to overcome No 28 seed Anastasia Potapova in the second round.

And her fiancé Alex de Minaur joined her in the last 64 at the expense of her compatriot Toby Samuel, the qualifier who gave a decent account of his powerful forehand and tidy serve on Court 14, but was beaten by his first-ever top 100 opponent in straight sets.

What to watch tomorrow (all times BST)

10am: Alexandra Eala vs Iva Jovic

~Midday: Laura Siegmund vs Naomi Osaka

~1.30pm: Anna Kalinskaya vs Lois Boisson

~2.30pm: Coco Gauff vs Taylor Townsend