French fans gave a loud rendition of the national anthem “La Marseillaise” for Varvara Gracheva after the Russian-born player beat Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu on Saturday in her first Roland Garros as a local since switching nationality last year.
Gracheva closed out a hard-fought 7-5 6-3 victory and joined in the singing as she celebrated being the last Frenchwoman left in the women’s draw. “I will remember this moment until the end of my life,” said Gracheva, who received her French passport in 2023 after living in the country for more than five years. “It means that everyone accepts me, that I’m home here.”
Ranked 39 at the start of the year, her best career ranking, Gracheva fell to 100th place in April after six consecutive tournaments where she was eliminated in the first round. “At the start of the year I was in some despair, I was very frustrated,” she said. “If someone had told me that I would be playing on the Suzanne Lenglen I wouldn’t have believed it,” she said with a big smile.
Gracheva, ranked 88 and who has never won a tournament, beat sixth-ranked Maria Sakkari in the first round. She will face 38th-ranked Russian Mirra Andreeva or 62nd-ranked American Peyton Stearns in what will be her first fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament. “I’m just happy to be here, if I can go even further, that’s a bonus. I’m proud,” she said.
De Minaur tries to track down young superfan
After a week in which the French Open crowd grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons, Australian Alex De Minaur launched a social media hunt for a young superfan.
Following his 4-6 6-4 6-3 6-3 win over Jan-Lennard Struff, 11th seed De Minaur hugged the boy and gave him a towel before posting on Instagram that he would need him again when he faces Daniil Medvedev in the last 16.
“That young lad was there from the very first point till the last, with five hours of rain delay. He was this little kid that every single change of ends, every single point I won, he was screaming at my face,” De Minaur told reporters.
“I’m looking at him and thinking...if I was a fan, I would probably be back home, because it was bloody cold out there. I don’t understand what this kid is doing, but he gave me life.”
French Open organisers posted a picture of the boy on social media site X. “I would have given him everything in my bag,” De Minaur added. “I just wasn’t thinking straight with the emotions. But he deserved everything. Rackets, shoes whatever he wanted.”

Murray considering playing Wimbledon doubles with brother
Three-times Grand Slam champion Andy Murray said he may play the men’s doubles alongside brother Jamie at next month’s Wimbledon Championships. The 37-year-old Scot has won two Wimbledon singles titles, while his brother is a two-times Wimbledon mixed doubles champion.
The Murray brothers also played together at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and were a prolific partnership when Britain won the Davis Cup in 2015. “I may play doubles at Wimbledon, yeah. I’m not 100% sure yet,” Murray told reporters after he and Daniel Evans suffered a 7-6(6) 7-6(3) first-round loss to Thiago Seyboth Wild and Sebastian Baez at the French Open.
“My brother doesn’t have a partner for Wimbledon currently. We have spoken a little bit about it. So may do that, but not 100% sure yet. (We will decide) ahead of time. I mean obviously Jamie could also get a good partner, as well. We’ll see what happens, but yeah, we’ll probably decide in the next few days.”