{"id":134711,"date":"2025-05-27T01:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T01:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/134711\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T01:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T01:47:11","slug":"french-open-star-seen-in-tears-ahead-of-final-appearance-before-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/134711\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open star seen in tears ahead of final appearance before retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caroline Garcia made an emotional entrance for her last ever French Open appearance following the announcement of her retirement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 31-year-old revealed in a statement on Friday that she’s calling time on her proffesional tennis career, 14 years after turning pro.<\/p>\n

\"Garcia<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Garcia wiped tears from her eyes before one final French Open matchCredit: @rolandgarros X<\/p>\n

Garcia has won 11 singles titles and eight doubles honours, and this year’s French Open is her 15th consecutive trip to Roland Garros<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bernarda Pera awaited her in the first round on Monday and before stepping out onto the court, the emotions started to take hold.<\/p>\n

France’s Garcia was spotted wiping away her tears when looking towards the arena in the Court Suzanne Lenglen tunnel.<\/p>\n

Despite this being her final appearance at the iconic Grand Slam, Garcia still had smile on her face whilst embracing the occasion.<\/p>\n

READ MORE ON THE FRENCH OPEN<\/p>\n

Her French Open send-off wasn’t meant to be though as Pera won 6-4 6-4 to reach the second round against fellow Croatian Donna Vekic.<\/p>\n

Pera paid her respects to Garcia afterwards though, as she said<\/a> via The Tennis Letter on X: “It was such an emotional match. <\/p>\n

“Even back there when we were standing, I started crying. Caroline is one of the nicest people on tour. <\/p>\n

“I’m honoured to get to know you and spend time with you and share the court with you. I wish you all the best in your next chapter with your fiancee. I hope to see you around still.”<\/p>\n

Garcia made her French Open main draw debut in 2011 as a wildcard before a second round defeat against the legendary Maria Sharapova.<\/p>\n

The former world no.4’s best finish in Paris came in the 2017 quarter-finals, only to be knocked out by Karolina Pliskova.<\/p>\n

\"Garcia's<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Garcia’s emotions were on show once against after defeatCredit: AFP\"Pera<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Pera lauded her opponent as one of the ‘nicest’ players on the WTA tourCredit: AFP<\/p>\n

Although she never became a singles champion at Roland Garros, Garcia leaves as a two-time doubles winner with Kristina Mladenovic.<\/p>\n

She also played mixed doubles at the 2016 and 2024 Olympics next to Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin respectively.<\/p>\n

Garcia revealed in her retirement announcement that she will play ‘a few more tournaments’ before officially hanging up her racquet.<\/p>\n

The French Open<\/a> began on Sunday with both men’s and women’s singles matches taking place.<\/p>\n

Defending women’s champion Iga Swiatek is through to the second round after a straight sets win over Rebecca Sramkova.<\/p>\n

She will face Emma Raducanu, who beat Wang Xinyu<\/a> in the third and final set despite needing a medical timeout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caroline Garcia made an emotional entrance for her last ever French Open appearance following the announcement of her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[38446,5066,2250,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-134711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-caroline-garcia","9":"tag-french-open","10":"tag-retirement","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114577279912156138","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}