Quick Served: Roland Garros Day 3

Two shockers and 5,000 busted brackets

May 27, 2026

Context-free soundbite: “I was more annoyed [by Monfils] than I should have been.”

Andy has the Meddy blues after the No. 6 seed’s five-set loss and he works through the shock in today’s recap with Producer Mike. He also circles back to Gael Monfils’s goodbye and what he meant to tennis.

For the record, everyone at Served HQ besides Kim had Daniil Medvedev in the semis. See you at the redraw.

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Bracket Busters

The Aussies came for our brackets today. A day after Thanasi Kokkinakis upset Terence Atmane, Adam Walton, ranked No. 97, who was 1-2 at Roland Garros coming into the tournament, took out Daniil Medvedev [6] 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4. Walton came back from a break down in the fifth set, and Medvedev played a careless final game with a double-fault and a wild swinging-volley error on match point. Afterward, Walton said he likes the heat in Paris. Cut to Medvedev complaining to his box mid-match and his wife responding, “It’s hot for everybody. Everybody is suffering. You need to behave!”

Then No. 83 Kimberly Birrell, another Aussie, took out Jessica Pegula [5] 1-6, 6-3 6-3. It was her first win ever at Roland Garros. Afterward, she still didn’t have a sense of how she turned the match around, other than maintaining a good attitude.

🎤 Kimberly Birrell
“I’ve been working on playing each point on its merit and deleting the point before, whether I’d won or lost the point.”

French sensation Moise Kouame, who lives about 15 minutes from Roland Garros, pulled off a historic upset of Marin Cilic 7-6, 6-2, 6-1. At 17, Kouame is the youngest person to beat a former Slam champion at the French and the first at any Slam since 2009. He’s just a few months younger than Michael Chang was when the American beat Ivan Lendl in the quarterfinals in 1989. We made the mistake of mentioning that to Andy in this episode.

Maria Sakkari got her first win at Roland Garros since 2022 when she took out Linda Noskova [12] 7-5, 7-6.

Who Cruised

Coco Gauff [4] opened her title defense on a chaotic morning that started with a fender bender (no one was hurt). She said it distracted her from her nerves, letting her played freely to beat Taylor Townsend 6-4, 6-0.

Jannik Sinner [1] also won easily, 6-1, 6-3, 6-4, over Clement Tabur. He passed Andre Agassi on the list of Slam match wins as world No. 1 with 39.

Madison Keys [13] had one of those days when everything worked—her words—and beat recent Love All guest Hanne Vandewinkel 6-3, 6-0.

Iva Jovic [17] beat her good friend Alexandra Eala 6-4, 6-2 just a few days after they hit the town to celebrate Eala’s birthday.

Learner Tien [18] served a double-bagel sandwich to Christian Garin, winning 6-0, 2-6, 6-0, 6-2 and making a case for the favorite in Medvedev’s quarter.

4 hours, 30 minutes

Length of Martin Landaluce’s five-set win today, the longest match of Round 1

Spanish teenager Martin Landaluce won his debut match at Roland Garros, and he made it memorable, beating qualifier Juan Carlos Prado Angelo 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 6-7, 6-4. It was the first five-set match of his career.

Landaluce, a product of the Rafael Nadal Academy, is often mentioned in the same breath as Rafael Jodar. Both are from Madrid, made the Next Gen Finals last year and had breakout wins this spring. Landaluce’s occurred at the Miami Open when he upset Sebastian Korda after Korda had taken out Carlos Alcaraz. Landaluce won six matches from qualifying to the quarterfinals in Miami.

🎤 Martin Landaluce on the heat learning curve
“You have to do a thousand things. Hydrate well, take plenty of gels and all the salts you can. Besides that, try to lower your heart rate during breaks and between points, so that the fatigue and lack of oxygen in your head due to excessive breathing don’t accumulate. Try to stay as calm as possible and know that, as the match will have its ups and downs, you have to put on a brave face and keep drawing energy.”

Tiebreak Trivia

On Day 3, Roland Garros honored the 70th anniversary of Althea Gibson’s historic title in 1956, the first Slam ever won by a Black player. What other professional sport did Gibson play?

💡 The answer will be in Day 4’s Quick Served newsletter.

Day 2 answer: Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are the other players (with Stan Wawrinka) to beat the Big 4 at the Slams.

Quick Hits

The backcourt tarp strikes again. Alexander Blockx caught his foot on one of the rolled-up rain coverings during practice and had to withdraw from the tournament with an ankle injury. We’ve known about the tarp trap for a decade.
The only thing cooler than Coco Gauff? Her racquets.
Naomi Osaka’s outfit was the talk of the town again. Here’s the best photo and secret detail and a heavy commentary from Courtney Nguyen.
Aryna Sabalenka won Round 1 of her annual Roland Garros dance-off with Novak Djokovic ⬇️