Roland Garros day three round-up
World No 7 Ons Jabeur made a near-flawless start to her French Open campaign as she brushed aside unseeded Italian Lucia Bronzetti 6-4 6-1 yesterday to reach the second round.
Jabeur has had a stop-start season in which she had minor knee surgery before winning the title in Charleston and skipping the Madrid Open with a calf problem but the Tunisian was in peak form in Paris as she eased through the first set.
Bronzetti came into the clash on Court Philippe Chatrier high on confidence after winning the first singles title of her career in Rabat but the 24-year-old’s hopes of ending a five-match losing run at the majors faded as the contest wore on.
Jabeur, the runner-up at last year’s Wimbledon and US Open, blended guile and power as she reeled off the breaks in the second set to go 5-0 up before dropping serve.
The 28-year-old quickly shook off that minor dip to comfortably close out the contest in the following game when Bronzetti sent a shot wide at the net.
World No 1 and defending champion Iga Swiatek begins her push for a third French Open title yesterday.
Daniil Medvedev, the men’s second seed, buoyed by a first clay title in Rome last week, also gets his campaign underway.
Former US Open champion Medvedev comes to Roland Garros having clinched his first ever clay court title at the prestigious Italian Open in Rome. It was also his fifth trophy of the year.
The Russian has endured a bitter-sweet relationship with the French Open, losing in the first round in his first four visits. He ended that streak with a run to the quarterfinals in 2021.
A former US Open junior champion, Brazil’s Thiago Seyboth Wild is ranked 172 and had to play the qualifiers in Paris.
Back in 2020, when he was still 19, he lifted his maiden ATP title in Santiago by beating Casper Ruud in the final, becoming the tour’s first champion born in the 2000s.
Seyboth Wild has been plagued by controversy. In 2021, he was reportedly investigated for abuse of a former girlfriend. He denied the allegations, describing them as “fabricated and vengeful”.
Meanwhile, last year’s runner-up Casper Ruud reached the second round of the French Open yesterday with a comfortable straight-sets victory over Sweden’s Elias Ymer.
The Norwegian fourth seed, who also lost the US Open final last year to Carlos Alcaraz, wrapped up a 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 victory on Suzanne Lenglen.
Ruud will next face either unpredictable Kazakh Alexander Bublik or Italian qualifier Giulio Zeppieri as he continues his attempt to go one better than 12 months ago when he was thrashed in the final by Rafael Nadal.
Rune is tipped as a potential title winner in Paris having made the quarterfinals on his debut last year, defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas
on his way. It took eventual runner-up Casper Ruud to halt his progress in a badtempered affair.
Rune accused Ruud of a “lack of respect”; Ruud told the Dane to “grow up”.
The 20-year-old Rune has enjoyed an impressive clay court season with a title success in Munich sandwiched by runnersup spots in Monte Carlo and Rome.
Eubanks is playing in the Paris main draw for the first time on a career-high ranking of 74.
He made a run to the Miami Masters quarterfinals out of qualifying this year, knocking out top 20 player Borna Coric in the first round before losing to Daniil Medvedev in the last-eight.