Gauff reaches quarterfinals, jokes with Tiafoe about forgetting rackets

Coco Gauff might have earned her fifth consecutive trip to the French Open quarterfinals with a straight-set victory yesterday, but she still is catching flak because she forgot to bring her rackets to a match earlier in the tournament.

The No. 2-seeded Gauff, who won the 2023 U.S. Open and was the runner-up in Paris in 2022, has been engaging in a bit of back-and-forth with another American and Roland-Garros quarterfinalist, Frances Tiafoe, over the equipment blunder.

Tiafoe teasingly called the 21-year-old Gauff “Mrs. Mature.” Gauff’s retort: “I feel like maybe just playing tennis, it forces you to grow up faster for some people. Maybe not him.”

It was Tiafoe who first made that very mistake back in March, showing up for a match at the tournament in Indian Wells, California, without his rackets. He got plenty of ribbing on social media and from other players — including Gauff.

So when Gauff went to Court Philippe-Chatrier for her first-round match last week and opened her bag only to realize there weren’t any rackets inside, the 27-year-old Tiafoe was only too happy to call her out.

“She was full out shaking her whole bag like it was an empty cookie jar on Chatrier. I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ … I’m going to keep ripping her for a long time. I’ve never seen someone (ranked No. 2) in the world have zero things in her bag. That was incredible,” said Tiafoe, who will play in the quarterfinals today.

“That kind of thing is so big because it just makes everyone (realize) we’re all human. People make mistakes, whether it’s the team or her or whatever,” he said, then added with a smile: “That was a funny moment, especially (because) she tries to be Mrs. Mature. That was great. I’m happy it happened to her. Hopefully it happens again.”

Gauff acknowledged she couldn’t really offer much of a retort.

“I literally told him: ‘From you, I expected it. From you, it’s OK, but the fact that it happened to me … .’ Because I feel like I’m a professional person, and usually I am someone — if anybody knows me — I’m someone that can find the comeback real quick. Even if I’m wrong, I’m one of those people that will still defend myself. I don’t like losing arguments,” Gauff said yesterday after beating No. 20 Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-0, 7-5 in the fourth round.

“But that one, I just had to take it. I learned that I had nothing to say, especially because I gave him a lot of (hassle) for it,” she said, “and then not even six months later, I did the same thing on an even bigger stage. But I have learned my lesson, and hopefully it won’t happen again.”

As for his barb about “Mrs. Mature” — stemming from how Gauff carries herself on the court and off after breaking through at Wimbledon at age 15 and collecting her first Grand Slam title at 19 — she said she hears that type of comment a lot.

“I definitely for sure feel like I’m sometimes, when I was a junior, especially more mature than maybe some of my peers. I don’t know why. I feel like I have always been that. When I was in school, I would always be the first one to class,” Gauff said. HOWARD FENDRICH, PARIS, MDT/AP