Daniel Vallejo turned a five-hour Roland Garros defeat into a fresh controversy on Thursday when he said the match should have been umpired by a man. The Paraguayan, 22 and ranked 71st in the world, lost to French teenager Moise Kouame 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6 and 7-6 (10-8) after letting a 5-2 lead slip in the final set.
The remark came almost immediately after one of the wildest matches of the tournament and put the focus back on officiating at the French Open. Vallejo said Brazilian chair umpire Ana Carvalho was not the right person for a match like this in Paris, adding that the crowd was so demanding that it took strength to go against it.
That is why the comment landed with such force. Vallejo was not speaking in the abstract; he was talking about a match he had just played for about five hours, one in which he came back from 1-6 down to force a final-set tiebreak and still ended up losing to a 17-year-old ranked 317th. In that setting, his line that the match needed to be refereed by a man was read as a direct attack on Carvalho’s ability to handle the occasion.
Vallejo did not back away from the criticism of the atmosphere. He said the crowd was “very out of line” even as he acknowledged that it was backing its compatriot, and he complained that his opponent had used up time by lying on the floor or stalling. He also said it was not normal for the crowd to shout for a full minute without any play. At the same time, he said the crowd’s behavior did not harm him, even as he argued that it helped strengthen Kouame.
The episode was not isolated. Another female chair umpire, Aurélie Tourte, drew fire on the same day from Jim Courier during Jannik Sinner’s match against Juan Manuel Cerúndolo. With Sinner leading by two sets and serving at 5-4 and 0-40, Tourte stepped down from her chair to speak to him before a warning was issued, prompting Courier to say she should have started the clock and that it was unfair on Cerúndolo.
Roland Garros has lived with complaints about its crowd for years, and Thursday brought the issue back into view with two female officials under scrutiny on the same day. What happens next with Vallejo is the open question now: beyond the criticism and a reported fine, there is no confirmed sign yet of further action from the tournament.
