{"id":48032,"date":"2026-06-01T09:08:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/francis-tiafoe-collects-racket-from-fan-after-french-open-celebration\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T09:08:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:08:45","slug":"francis-tiafoe-collects-racket-from-fan-after-french-open-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/francis-tiafoe-collects-racket-from-fan-after-french-open-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Francis Tiafoe collects racket from fan after French Open celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>In the aftermath of Francis Tiafoe&#8217;s French Open second-round victory on Thursday, the American turned his attention to other tasks. It was to get back the racket that won the match.<\/p>\n<p>In a marathon match that lasted 4 hours and 43 minutes, Tiafoe defeated Hubert Hurkas 6-7(5), 7-6(7), 6-4, 6-7(1), 6-4. After hitting a forehand winner to secure victory, he reacted strongly, running to hug fans in the crowd with his racket in hand.<\/p>\n<p>During the celebration, Tiafoe hugged a fan. But when he walked out of the crowd, his racket was gone. Tiafoe said to his team as he left the court with all his rackets in his bag. &#8220;Wait, I think I dropped my racket,&#8221; he said on the TNT Sports broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>Tiafoe head coach Dr. Mark Kovacs then asked if fans would like to post anything to get input.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought, &#8216;Yeah, that would be interesting.&#8217; I thought, &#8216;We can get it (back) here.&#8217; I don&#8217;t understand it in America,&#8221; Tiafoe said.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><picture><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a2.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0528%2Ftrending_image2_635x1280.png&amp;w=570&amp;format=jpg, https:\/\/a2.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0528%2Ftrending_image2_635x1280.png&amp;w=1140&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(min-width: 376px)\"><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a2.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0528%2Ftrending_image2_635x1280.png&amp;w=375, https:\/\/a2.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0528%2Ftrending_image2_635x1280.png&amp;w=750&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(max-width: 375px)\"\/><\/source><\/picture><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>So Tiafoe posted on his Instagram Story that he would give away two tickets to the next game if the fan returned his racket. Soon after, a member of his team took a selfie with the person holding it, tagged Tiafoe and wrote, &#8220;Keep your racket in hand, brother.&#8221; A fan held up a shoe that appeared to be worn by Tiafoe in the game. There is no word on whether tickets will also be distributed.<\/p>\n<p>The lime green racquet is one of eight that Tiafoe will accompany him to the tournament. He briefly explained why he wanted it back.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I mean, that&#8217;s how we won the game. I guess we got lucky,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Tiafoe will face Portugal&#8217;s Jaime Faria in the third round on Saturday, and there will definitely be lime green in the mix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the aftermath of Francis Tiafoe&#8217;s French Open second-round victory on Thursday, the American turned his attention to other tasks. It was to get back the racket that won the match. In a marathon match that lasted 4 hours and 43 minutes, Tiafoe defeated Hubert Hurkas 6-7(5), 7-6(7), 6-4, 6-7(1), 6-4. After hitting a forehand [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1112,9296,1058,1963,151,32,835,24,1834],"class_list":["post-48032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-celebration","tag-collects","tag-fan","tag-francis","tag-french","tag-open","tag-racket","tag-tennis","tag-tiafoe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}