Iga Swiatek has called for the French Open to make changes to the layout of their courts after multiple players were forced to withdraw this week having been injured when tripping over obstacles at the back of the Roland Garros courts.
On Friday, the Turkish player Zeynep Sonmez had been chasing down a lob when she ran into one of the Lacoste advertising boards placed at the back of the court and fell to the floor. After a medical time out, Sonmez, alongside her partner, Tatjana Maria, was forced to retire from her second-round doubles match against Dayana Yastremska and Anhelina Kalinina while trailing 2-0.
“I didn’t see the incidents, but I heard about them,” said Swiatek. “Obviously if these things happen, there needs to be a reaction, because there are other ways for us to be visible for sure, you know?
“It’s a shame – I hope they’re going to put them in a different place or just put the advertising in a different way there, because it’s not safe for sure,” said Swiatek.
Earlier in the week, the Belgian player Alexander Blockx said he was forced to withdraw after injuring himself on the rain covers at the back of a practice court. Blockx revealed this information in a statement on Instagram before hastily editing it: “Unfortunately during today’s practice I heard a snap in my ankle while I sprained it thanks to the ‘really necessary’ covers at the back of the court at Roland Garros, which is why I had to withdraw from tomorrow’s match that I was really looking forward to.”
There have been other near misses, including Great Britain’s Katie Boulter, who said the boards need to be removed after she also tripped on one in her second-round match on Friday while backpedalling to hit a forehand. “THESE THINGS HAVE TO GO. Got lucky last night but next time I might not be …” she wrote on X.
Sonmez later responded to Boulter’s post, saying: “I stand with Katie. 5 incidents in 5 days. I left the court with 2 stitches and a bruised knee. Thankfully, it wasn’t worse. Do we really have to wait until a player is seriously injured before these courtside boards are removed? Player safety must come first.”
This is far from a new issue at Roland Garros, which uses these panels towards the back of the court to advertise their sponsors. In 2017, David Goffin was forced to retire from his third-round match. No other grand slam tournament places their rain covers behind the baseline. Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Open is the only other grand slam court with advertising hoardings on the court, but those boards are pressed directly to the back wall. This is also a particular issue on clay courts due to the tendency for players to move and defend from deeper positions on the surface.
The French Open is also the only big tournament that still uses line judges, with the tournament placing their boards next to linespeople in the court. After her straight sets win over Viktorija Golubic, Marta Kostyuk said she did not believe that the tournament would make any changes: “I feel like there are some rules that no matter what happens, they just cannot be changed, and no matter how much you speak about it or how much you fight over it, it’s just the rules. I don’t know.”
Last Thursday, the narrative immediately after the draw ceremony was that Swiatek, the world No 3, had been placed in the toughest section of the women’s singles, projected to face her nemesis, Jelena Ostapenko, with a potential semi-final versus Elena Rybakina awaiting further in the future. Ostapenko and Rybakina, however, lost in round two, while Swiatek continues to build confidence and momentum in her first major tournament alongside her new coach, Francisco Roig.
A much tougher task awaits Swiatek as she chases her fifth Roland Garros title. She will next face Kostyuk, who is on a 15-match winning streak and has not lost on clay this year after winning titles in Rouen and Madrid. “I definitely have a different feeling going into this match, because I feel like last time that I played her in Cincinnati, I lost this match way before it even started, and I don’t feel the same this time,” said Kostyuk.
