{"id":675340,"date":"2026-05-31T04:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T04:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675340\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T04:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T04:07:16","slug":"tennis-player-says-female-umpire-wasnt-strong-enough-to-officiate-french-open-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675340\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis player says female umpire wasn\u2019t strong enough to officiate French Open match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis player Adolfo Daniel Vallejo has said that his French Open<\/a> loss against 17-year-old Mo\u00efse Kouame should have been umpired by a man, as women find working with a demanding crowd \u201cvery difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vallejo came back from two sets down against the teenager to force a fifth set in their second-round match on Thursday, but he then blew a 5-3 lead in the decider to lose 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6(8). It all happened against the raucous backdrop of the Court Suzanne-Lenglen<\/a> crowd, where fans are especially vocal in their support of French players.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old, who hails from Paraguay, criticized the choice of official, umpire Ana Carvalho, and said she did not control the French prodigy\u2019s \u201clying on the floor and stalling\u201d in what was his major tournament debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sort of match needs to be umpired by a man, it\u2019s very difficult for a woman to do it,\u201d Vallejo told Clay<\/a> magazine. \u201cIt has to be refereed by a man, because it\u2019s a very demanding crowd and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crowd was very out of line, but I understand they\u2019re supporting their compatriot. It\u2019s quite an intense crowd and that\u2019s why I was prepared; I already knew it would be like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Vallejo said his opponent spent too long stalling on the ground (Dimitar Dilkoff \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Later on Friday, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) and tournament organizers issued a statement in which they described the comments as \u201cunacceptable\u201d and confirmed that Vallejo would be fined.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe competence of an umpire is not determined by their gender, but by their professionalism and ability to officiate at the highest level. The outcome of a sporting event, whether positive or negative, can never justify or excuse such remarks,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Roland-Garros tournament strongly condemns all sexist remarks, regardless of who makes them, and offers its support to the match umpire and, more broadly, to all the tournament\u2019s umpiring officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vallejo entered the French Open having reached the round of 32 in the Madrid Open, before losing in the qualifying round of the Italian Open. He currently sits at 71 in the ATP singles rankings.<\/p>\n

The match was Kouame\u2019s longest in senior tennis, four hours and 56 minutes, and in front of the biggest crowd he had played against, with 10,000 watching.<\/p>\n

He will play Chile\u2019s Alejandro Tabilo, ranked No. 36, in the third round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis player Adolfo Daniel Vallejo has said that his French Open loss against 17-year-old Mo\u00efse Kouame should have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[690,99,428],"class_list":["post-675340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-culture","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}