2026 French Open Round 1: Glittering Gold and Dripping Sweat
5/27/202644 min
Ben and Tumaini wrap up the first round at this 2026 French Open, where it's been very hot and a bunch of the top 10 seeds haven't looked so hot, particularly on the men's side.
On the women's side, the car crashes have somehow been literal, but Naomi Osaka's fashion moment was a big hit in all the best ways.
Also some Bounces items mentioned: there's a 15% discount on subscriptions during this French Open, and you can read the recent pieces on Oleksandra Oliynykova and Emma Navarro at the links.
Thank you for listening! Our Patreon is back up and running to ensure NCR keeps going and stays ad-free, and we hope you can join in supporting NCR! And we especially thank our GOAT backers: Pam Shriver and J. O'D.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsTumaini Carayol0:00
Miss Ostapenko has no challenges remaining Welcome to No Challenges Remaining.
Ben Rothenberg· Host0:03
It is the end of the first round of the 2026 French Open at Roland-Garros. I'm Ben Rothenberg, joined by Tumani Cario, who's NCR's Spain and Sub-Saharan Africa correspondent, and also the tennis correspondent for The Guardian. Tumani, how are you doing?
Tumaini Carayol0:18
Hello, hello. I'm good, thank you. It's, it's 1:00 AM here, um, end of the first round.
Ben Rothenberg· Host0:25
Mm-hmm.
Tumaini Carayol0:25
We're already getting a bit delirious, honestly.
Ben Rothenberg· Host0:27
Mm-hmm.
Tumaini Carayol0:27
But, but- Because of the heat Because of the heat, because of the- And the lack of air conditioning ... because of the three long days of, of first round matches that nobody needs in this world. But- For me, it's mostly the sleeping without air conditioning in hot rooms. No, I mean, I'm, I'm used to it.
Ben Rothenberg· Host0:39
I, yes. It's, it's funny, like Americans generally are so good at being out in the heat, and like we're fine. And like everyone's like, "Oh my God, it's so..." Especially like in England, everyone's like, "Oh my God, it's so hot," and it's like 78 Fahrenheit, and people are literally dying in England. And we're fine if we're outside. And then if you just like try to sleep in a room with no ventilation, no circulation, no air anything is, is tough. Tough stuff.
Tumaini Carayol1:04
Tough stuff.
Ben Rothenberg· Host1:05
But we take the hazard pay to be here at the French Open. Still a good gig, all those things considered. And it was an interesting first round. I think I got most interesting results-wise today. There's a final day of three days of this. Uh, we started the day, um, in no particular order, I guess, unless there's a real clear—I don't think there's any real clear obvious lead story from the first round. But a bunch of just sort of medium-sized upsets piled up today. Daniil Medvedev, I would start with. Um,