With every ace, winner and on-court triumph during the first week of Roland Garros, Frances Tiafoe, Madison Keys, Coco Gauff, Taylor Townsend and Evan King were sliding their way toward an accomplishment never seen in professional tennis.
For the first time, an African-American reached the quarterfinals (or better) in all five of the professional disciplines—men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles—at a single Grand Slam tournament.
Over the course of the past 75 years, Black Americans have had an evolving impact on the sport, particularly at the game’s most prestigious events. Groundbreaking victories by Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe and career-defining runs at majors by MaliVai Washington and Zina Garrison inspired a generation of major singles champions like Venus and Serena Williams, Sloane Stephens, Gauff and Keys.
And while Roland Garros might have arguably been the least likely Slam to be the site of such an historic feat, this group of Americans has been making solid headway on the terre battue for years. Keys, Gauff and Townsend have all reached the semifinals or better at Roland Garros, in different disciplines than their 2025 runs, in prior campaigns.
Leading the charge has been Gauff. The No. 2 singles seed entered this year’s tournament with a solid dose of momentum on her side, having reached back-to-back finals at major clay tournaments in Madrid and Rome. The first half of her 2025 campaign hasn’t lived up to her lofty expectations, but it appears as if she’s righted the ship: the 2022 Roland Garros finalist (and last year’s doubles champion) is now back in the semifinals after a three-set win over Keys.
The reigning Australian Open women’s singles champion, Keys battled through to the second week with a mix of performances that were both dominant and gutsy. When she wasn’t winning her matches in straight sets (over Daria Saville and Katie Boulter), she was fighting off multiple match points (against Sofia Kenin). After her unexpected title run in Melbourne, the 2018 Roland Garros semifinalist kept hopes of a calendar Slam alive with her four victories, running her Grand Slam match-winning streak to 11, before Gauff stopped her charge on Wednesday.
On the men’s singles side, Tiafoe has had an inconsistent year by his standards, entering Roland Garros with a record barely above .500 (13-12). However, as he’s demonstrated on multiple occasions over the course of his career, the 27-year-old plays his best tennis on the biggest stages. Something clicked from the first ball when he hit the clay in Paris, as he posted straight-set victories through his first four matches, including over his countryman Sebastian Korda and Spanish veteran Pablo Carreno Busta. Lorenzo Musetti, one of the tournament favorites, stopped the 16th seed’s run, but Tiafoe leaves Paris with a quarterfinal-or-better run at three of the four majors in his career.