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Roland-Garros wrap - Tues May 26

Medvedev and Pegula exit on Day 3 in Paris

Daniel Altmaier, Roland-Garros 2026, second round
©Loïc Wacziak / FFT
 - Lee Goodall

No sooner had Gael Monfils waved goodbye to Roland-Garros on Monday night than French fans had a brand new hero to cheer in Paris following Moise Kouame’s first-ever Grand Slam win less than 24 hours later.

The 17-year-old edged a tight first set on a tiebreak on a sun-baked Court Simonne-Mathieu, before maintaining his poise throughout a 7-6(4), 6-2, 6-1 victory over former US Open champion Marin Cilic.

➡️ Wednesday order of play

“I just wanted to go in and have fun, and that's what I managed to do,” the Paris teenager said after soaking up the applause on another sweltering day in Paris.

Soon after, Australia’s Adam Walton delivered one of the shocks of the week so far when he outlasted No.6 seed Daniil Medvedev 6-4 in the fifth.

He revealed the extent of his Paris build-up, chasing points and trying to maintain a ranking high enough to guarantee a direct entry into the next Grand Slam at Wimbledon.

Walton started his clay season on the red dirt of Houston, wrote RG’s Chris Oddo, before jumping on a flight to South Korea for a hard court Challenger. He flew to Madrid for the clay Masters 1000 event, then flew back to China for two more hard-court Challengers, before jetting back to the French capital. 

In the last match on court fourth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime avoided becoming another big name heading home when he recovered from 4-1 down in the fifth set before scrapping through a deciding tiebreak 10-7 against Germany’s Daniel Altmaier.

It was a relatively smooth Tuesday for the world No.1s however as Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner both won at either ends of Day 3.

Sabalenka, a runner-up here last year, beat Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-4, 6-2 while Sinner starred during the night session with a routine win over French wildcard Clement Tabur.

Defending champion Coco Gauff got through a tight first set against friend and doubles world No.2 Taylor Townsend before she hit the gas to win 6-4, 6-0 on Chatrier.

The women’s draw lost a big seed late on when Australian world No.83 Kim Birrell scored the biggest win of her career over world No.5 Jessica Pegula.

Birrell’s 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory is her best by ranking, her first over a top-5 player and her maiden match win at the Paris major.

Earlier Czech Linda Noskova was another casualty when the 12th seed lost in straight sets to former semifinalist Maria Sakkari from Greece.

Martin Landaluce earned himself a slap-up dinner as Tuesday’s marathon man after the 20-year-old from Madrid scrambled through the longest match of the tournament so far.

He converted his fifth match point to beat Bolivian qualifier Juan Carlos Prado Angelo after 4 hours and 30 minutes in boiling hot conditions on Court 9 for his first Grand Slam victory.

And so into round two on Wednesday as the bottom half of both draws are played out from 11am local.

As the draws thin out a touch, Alex Sharp takes us through 10 second round sizzlers to look forward to.

And Alix Ramsay picks out the matches of the day from the Wednesday schedule.