While the weather was fairly awful for a tennis event in the first week of the 2026 French Open, that wasn't the worst thing that happened. Not by a long shot.
Little-known and likely soon forgotten, Adolfo Daniel Vallejo played Frenchman Moise Kouame in the second round and lost in five sets. The Parisian crowd was firmly behind their home countryman, a 17-year-old just beginning his ATP career. The audience was boisterous and imposing, just as they would have been in New York at the US Open for a young American.
Vallejo, though, thought things went on for far too long in between points at times. Had the referee been a man, according to Vallejo, the match would have gone more smoothly and the crowd more under control.
Adolfo Daniel Vallejo makes a fool of himself at the 2026 French Open
The Paraguayan told Clay magazine after the match, "This sort of match needs to be umpired by a man. It's very difficult for a woman to do it. It has to be refereed by a man, because it's a very demanding crowd and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd."
One might react to Vallejo's words as one who had just lost a tense match. Perhaps he was not totally in control of his thoughts, and his emotions and lack of logic were getting the best of him. But no.
After giving his words some thought, Vallejo seemed to stumble into double-downing on them. His native language is Spanish, and his social media response to his original words was, too. In other words, no language issue existed in his belief that a man should have been umpiring his match.
On X, he wrote (according to ESPN, as Vallejo has since deleted the tweet), "I never spoke about women in general, I spoke about the referee specifically, who didn't handle the crowd at any point during the match. That said, I also didn't say that I lost because of her. I congratulated the opponent, and it's normal for the crowd to cheer for the home player."
Part of the problem was that Vallejo literally spoke about women in general when criticizing the match umpire, Ana Carvalho. He didn't say that Carvalho, an umpire who has an ITF Silver Badge, meaning she has been working tennis matches for many years, shouldn't have been calling his match, but that a "man" should have been.
Hopefully, Adolfo Daniel Vallejo understands the consequences of the French Open fining him for his words, which, thankfully, the tournament did. Maybe he should just be thankful he has a current career playing tennis. That might not last long because he simply isn't very good.
In fact, Ana Carvalho will probably be calling professional tennis matches long after Vallejo is done playing. One can hope so anyway.
Add us as a preferred source on Google