Tommy Paul, more seriously than Coco Gauff a week ago, would cancel the loser’s speech after a final if he could

Twenty-four hours after losing the Hamburg final in three sets to the Peruvian qualifier Ignacio Buse, Tommy Paul arrived at his Roland-Garros media day with a recommendation. Asked, in a serious question about the uniqueness of tennis scoring, what one rule he would change, the American chose the runner-up ceremony.

“I don’t think finalists should get trophies and have to do the whole stand up on the mic and talk to anybody,” he said. “I don’t know many sports that do that, but that would probably be my one thing.”

Paul’s Recent Experience

The timing was either accidental or unimprovable. Paul had spent the previous evening doing precisely the thing he was now proposing to abolish: standing courtside at the Rothenbaum, holding a finalist’s silver plate, addressing the crowd that had watched him lose nine consecutive games to a 22-year-old qualifier playing his first ATP-level final. Buse, ranked No. 78, had come through three rounds of qualifying. Paul had come into the match as the No. 26, having beaten Alex de Minaur in the semi-final after trailing 2-6, 0-3.

The clay season has been a strange one for him. A title in Houston in early April, where he saved three championship points against Román Burruchaga in the final. Early losses in Madrid and Rome that he himself describes as “not bad, but not what I wanted.” A two-and-a-half-hour, three-set first-round win over Daniel Altmaier in Hamburg, then a five-set defeat of De Minaur, then the final loss to Buse. He arrives in Paris as the world No. 26, having played thirteen matches in the previous twenty days.

Coco Gauff’s Similar Sentiment

The runner-up ceremony has, in fact, been on the tour’s mind for a fortnight. After losing the Rome final to Elina Svitolina on May 16 — 6-4 6-7(3) 6-2, her third Rome title — Coco Gauff posted on her Instagram story:

“Top 5 horror movies:1. sitting through a trophy ceremony after you lose2. talking after you lose3. smiling with your finalist trophy4. sitting through trophy ceremony when you lose5. ceremony after you lose”She added a disclaimer underneath the list, sensing the reaction: “this is a joke and i’m smiling while writing this thought it would be funny. not meant to be taken seriously lol before the ppl with no humor get mad.”

Earlier in the same story, captioning an image of herself clutching her finalist plate while Svitolina spoke, she had written: “Me disassociating, replaying all of my mistakes in my head and trying not to crash out during the ceremony.”

UTS Model

The model where the loser doesn’t speak already exists. UTS Tour, which Patrick Mouratoglou founded in 2020 as a breakaway exhibition league, has no runner-up speech and no appearance from the loser in the trophy ceremony.

Paul plays his first round at Roland-Garros on Monday against Rinky Hijikata of Australia. If he loses, he will at least be spared the microphone.