French Open: Adolfo Daniel Vallejo to be fined after saying second-round match shouldn’t have been umpired by a woman

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The French Tennis Federation and Roland-Garros tournament organizers announced Friday that Paraguayan Adolfo Daniel Vallejo will be fined for his “unacceptable” comments about a female chair umpire in the wake of his 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6(8) defeat to 17-year-old Frenchman Moïse Kouamé.

After digging himself out of a two-set hole on Thursday on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, the 22-year-old Vallejo staged a comeback. But he fell short of completing a potential come-from-behind victory in a five-set match that lasted almost five hours.

CLAY reported that, afterward, Vallejo told the outlet the kind of match he just played “needs to be umpired by a man” and that “it’s very difficult for a woman to do it.”

Vallejo, according to CLAY, elaborated: “It has to be refereed by a man because it’s a very demanding crowd, and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd.”

The match was overseen by Brazilian chair umpire Ana Carvalho, whom Vallejo felt didn’t appropriately control the raucous spectators or handle Kouamé’s “lying on the floor and stalling” amid another hot day in Paris.

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Players are entitled to take as many as 25 seconds between points. That said, as reported by ESPN, it’s customary for umpires to use their judgment when deciding to start that countdown if the crowd is boisterous after a point.

“The crowd was very out of line, but I understand they’re supporting their compatriot,” Vallejo said, per CLAY. “It’s quite an intense crowd and that’s why I was prepared; I already knew it would be like that and, to be honest, it didn’t harm me, but rather strengthened him.”

While Vallejo conceded, per CLAY, that type of situation is difficult to referee, his comments, collectively, have understandably drawn ire and a response from the powers that be at Roland-Garros.

“The competence of an umpire is not determined by their gender but by their professionalism and ability to officiate at the highest level,” the statement from the FTT and Roland-Garros tournament organizers reads, via tennis reporter Michal Samulski.

“The outcome of a sporting event, whether positive or negative, can never justify or excuse such remarks.”

The statement also says: “The Roland-Garros tournament strongly condemns all sexist remarks, regardless of who makes them, and offers its support to the match umpire and, more broadly, to all the tournament’s umpiring officials.”

Vallejo, currently No. 71 in the APT rankings, took to social media on Friday to say his words had been taken out of context in the widely circulated report from CLAY.

“I never spoke about women in general, I spoke about the referee specifically, who didn’t handle the crowd at any point during the match,” Vallejo wrote on X in Spanish, per ESPN. “That said, I also didn’t say that I lost because of her. I congratulated the opponent and it’s normal for the crowd to cheer for the home player.”

That post has since been deleted or removed, however.

Kouame is the youngest man to reach the third round of a Grand Slam since Spanish legend Rafael Nadal did so at Wimbledon in 2003 when he was also 17. Next up for Kouame is a Saturday match against Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo.