Canadians serve up opening-round wins
Raonic and Abanda breeze with Bouchard on deck; Djokovic opens career slam bid
PARIS— Fifth-seeded Milos Raonic is safely through to the second round of the French Open after sweeping past Steve Darcis of Belgium in straight sets. The Canadian took just 92 minutes to beat the 38th-ranked Darcis 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 — taking the final game to love.
“I was able to break relatively early in all three sets, and just go about my business throughout the whole match. So I’m happy with that,” Raonoic said.
In women’s action, Montreal’s Francoise Abanda opened with a 6-3, 6-4 win over France’s Tessah Andrianjafitrimo.
Raonic’s big serve was in full effect as he fired 15 aces to Darcis’s three. Raonic won 88 per cent of his first service points, compared to 65 per cent for Darics.
The 26-year-old put the match away with a dominant third set. He broke Darcis in the first game to set the tone, then fired an ace to pen the decisive eighth game before closing with a forehand winner.
“It’s good to start off well, but he’s sort of the guy who gives me some kind of looks,” Raonic said. “I could always get my racquet on his serve. I took care of my serve and I think in general it was just a good matchup for me.”
Raonic, who grew up in Thornhill, Ont., will next play Rogerio Dutra Silva of Brazil.
Abanda, who entered the main draw through qualifying, had three aces and converted four of eight break-point opportunities in her win over Andrianjafitrimo. Abanda will next face 11th seed and former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki.
Canadian Eugenie Bouchard is scheduled to play her first-round match Tuesday against Risa Osaki. In other action: If Novak Djokovic was hoping to take a little pressure and attention off himself after some rough results, he might very well have found the perfect way to do that by adding Andre Agassi as a coaching consultant of sorts for the French Open. Well, for up to a week of the tournament, anyway.
With Agassi seated in the stands, generally expressionless during the match and silent afterward, the No. 2-seeded Djokovic was not always at his clean-swinging best while beating Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 on Monday to begin the defence of the title that allowed him to complete a career Grand Slam at Roland Garros a year ago.
“It’s hard to say whether there is significant difference on the court, because it’s only a few days that we are together,” Djokovic said. “So it’s going to take a little bit of time . . . I’m patient and, for us, this is a great way to start off our collaboration and friendship and get to know each other and then see where it takes us.”
On a relatively quiet day two, Rafael Nadal started his pursuit of a record 10th French Open championship with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-1victory over Benoit Paire. Leave it to the No. 4seeded Nadal to win relatively simply and then lament a portion of his performance. “For me,” he said, “it’s important to serve a little bit better than what I did today.”
Other seeded men advancing included No. 7 Marin Cilic and No. 10 David Goffin, while No. 14 Jack Sock, the top-ranked U.S. man, and No. 31 Gilles Simon — both in Nadal’s section of the draw — plus No. 32 Mischa Zverev all lost.
Defending women’s champion Garbine Muguruza and former No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki won in straight sets, but two seeded American women joined Sock on the way out: No. 19 CoCo Vandeweghe and No. 25 Lauren Davis.