{"id":384,"date":"2026-05-22T21:30:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/384\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T21:30:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:30:30","slug":"french-open-2026-coco-gauff-defends-roland-garros-title-amid-media-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/384\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open 2026: Coco Gauff Defends Roland Garros Title Amid Media Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World No. 4 Coco Gauff is back on clay, defending her <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/coco-gauff-defeats-aryna-sabalenka-to-win-2025-french-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">French Open crown<\/a> on Sunday as the annual Grand Slam kicks off with an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rolandgarros.com\/en-us\/results\/SD?round=1\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.rolandgarros.com\/en-us\/results\/SD?round=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">unpredictable main draw<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 2 Elena Rybakina, and No. 3 Iga \u015awi\u0105tek headline the French Open field. However, players outside the WTA\u2019s Top 5 won the last two <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/coco-gauff-elina-svitolina-italian-open-final-roland-garros-french-open-field-results\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">tune-up tournaments<\/a> \u2014 showcasing the tour\u2019s depth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI realize that the defending means nothing \u2060in a way,\u201d Gauff said this week. \u201cEach year is a new opportunity and new chance for anyone to win.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Players are making their voices heard by keeping quiet this year, as top stars launch a <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/french-open-roland-garros-media-boycott-protest-aryna-sabalenka-coco-gauff-prize-money-2026\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/french-open-roland-garros-media-boycott-protest-aryna-sabalenka-coco-gauff-prize-money-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">media protest<\/a> intended to highlight revenue sharing concerns at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n<p>Players will limit their media availability to 15 minutes,\u00a0calling attention to the French Open\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/french-open-boycott-french-open-2026-sabalenka-gauff-prize-money\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">15% revenue share<\/a> model. That&#8217;s significantly below the 22% combined WTA and ATP tournament standard. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With estimated revenues of over 400 million Euros for this year&#8217;s tournament, prize money as a percentage of revenue will likely still be less than 15%, far short of the 22% that players have requested to bring the Grand Slams into line with the ATP and WTA Combined 1000 events,&#8221; the players said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Where to Watch the 2026 French Open at Roland Garros<\/p>\n<p>The French Open begins on Sunday at 5 AM ET, live on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tntsports.com\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.tntsports.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">TNT<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World No. 4 Coco Gauff is back on clay, defending her French Open crown on Sunday as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[315,185,207,360,220,361],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-french-open","tag-2026-french-open","tag-coco-gauff","tag-french-open","tag-protest","tag-roland-garros","tag-wta-grand-slams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}