Tennis Player Retires After Injury from a French Open Match

On May 29, 2026, in a French Open doubles match, something happened to Zeynep Sönmez, a Turkish tennis player. During the match, while chasing after the ball, Sönmez tripped over a small advertisement block on the court. This caused her to have to end the game from that specific match.

According to undefined, Zeynep Sönmez’s ended up getting a knee injury from the trip. After the match, she said that her injury needed two stitches. The advertisements were on the court to fund the tournament, but she ended up calling the French Open and told them to remove the advertising blocks from the court to prevent further injury. She was upset that they hadn’t thought of removing the advertising block a long time ago. They seriously had to wait until a player got hurt to realize finally that they had placed the advertising blocks in the wrong place.

According to undefined, Sönmez’s team (Zeynep Sönmez and Tatiana Maria) didn’t end up winning. After realizing her injury, she ended up announcing that she could no longer continue the game. The opposing team, Dayana Yastremska and Anhelina Kalinina, ended up winning and “were awarded the victory with the score at 2-0 to advance to the third round,” undefined reported.

Zeynep Sönmez ended up not getting the win in an unfortunate way, getting injured by tripping on an advertising block. She ended up recovering quickly and continued to play. Sometimes, a tennis player’s biggest challenge isn’t their opponent, but instead, an advertising block put in the tennis court.