Kyrgios loses his cool, wins match

PARIS — It all started with what Nick Kyrgios insisted was an innocuous, if admittedly loud, directive to a ball kid to retrieve a towel between points — shouted above the din of spectators at the French Open’s cozy Court 1.

Chair umpire Carlos Ramos considered Kyrgios’ bark during a first-set tiebreaker Sunday too forceful and assessed a code violation warning for unsportsmanlike conduct. That led to a long-running, and occasionally curse-filled, argument from the 21-year-old Australian, who at one point said the official was “unbelievably biased.”

Much as the 17th-seeded Kyrgios made of the disagreement at the time — he could have been docked a point for his colorful language — he managed to set it aside eventually and worked his way through a 7-6 (6), 7-6 (6), 6-4 victory over 124th-ranked Marco Cecchinato of Italy with the help of 16 aces, providing a bit of a spark on an otherwise dreary, drenched Day 1 at Roland Garros.

“It didn’t put me off too much,” Kyrgios said of his flap with Ramos. “With someone like me that’s pretty emotional, it can frustrate me a little bit, but I felt like I dealt with it pretty well.”

Of the 32 matches on Sunday’s schedule, his was one of only nine completed before showers created a rain delay of more than 2½ hours in the afternoon.

Winners included twotime Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, who acknowledged feeling “kind of down mentally” and was one game from bowing out against 59th-ranked Danka Kovinic of Montenegro before taking the final three for a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 escape. —