French Open Tennis Tournament Gets More Surprising

The French Open tennis tournament in Paris had many surprises on Saturday. Several top women players lost their matches unexpectedly. This made the tournament much more exciting and harder to predict. The matches also lasted much longer than usual, with some going almost six hours.

Madison Keys, an American tennis player, made jokes about how nervous the men players seemed. She said they were worried about who would make it to the final match. Keys was right that the men's side of the tournament was wide open. But on Saturday, the women's side became surprising too.

Several top women players lost their matches. Coco Gauff, who won the tournament last year, lost to Anastasia Potapova from Austria. Amanda Anisimova, the sixth-best player, lost to Diane Parry from France. Keys herself beat Victoria Mboko, who was ranked ninth. Now only four of the top ten players are left in the tournament.

The matches on Saturday were extremely long. Juan Manuel Cerúndolo from Argentina played for almost six hours. His match against Martin Landaluce lasted five hours and 58 minutes. This was the third-longest match at the French Open since 1996. Cerúndolo had also beaten the number one player in the world just two days before.

Many other matches also went five sets. Matteo Berrettini from Italy played for more than five hours. Frances Tiafoe from America came back from losing the first two sets to win his match. In total, nine out of 16 matches went to five sets. This is the most ever at a major tennis tournament.

A young French player named Moïse Kouame became very popular with the crowd. He is only 17 years old and this was his first big tournament. Even though he lost his match, the French fans cheered loudly for him. They sang the French national anthem to support him. Kouame showed great fighting spirit even when he was losing.