Fourth seed Ruud powers past qualifier Ymer into 2nd round
Fourth seed Casper Ruud coasted into the French Open second round with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Swedish qualifier Elias Ymer yesterday to kick off his bid for a second straight final in Paris.
Ymer was no match for the baseline power of the Norwegian world No.4, who lost in the 2022 final to Rafael Nadal, an absentee this year.
“Last year was one of the best tournaments of my life,” Ruud said. “You want to defend what you did last year. Last year was incredible for me and I will try to do it again wherever I play.”
He got his first break at 3-3 when Ymer sailed a forehand wide.
The Norwegian, whose season start was far from successful before winning the title on clay in Estoril last month and reaching the last four in Rome two weeks ago, broke his opponent again at the start of the second set.
Pummelling Ymer with thundering baseline winners, Ruud was in no mood to slow down, and even after the Swedish journeyman clawed his way back with a break of his own he responded with another break to bag the set.
Ymer, whose brother Mikael was eliminated in the first round as well, had no answer to Ruud’s power game, littering the court with errors when engaged in longer rallies, one of which came on the second match point, handing victory to Ruud with a backhand miss.
In the women’s singles first round, world No.7 Ons Jabeur made a nearflawless start to her French Open campaign as she brushed aside unseeded Italian Lucia Bronzetti 6-4, 6-1 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 fivematch 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.
DJOKOVIC COURTS TROUBLE
Novak Djokovic courted controversy on Monday when he wrote “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence” on a camera at the French Open after clashes flared in northern Kosovo amid ethnic tensions.
The Belgrade-born tennis superstar wrote the message in Serbian after his opening round victory over Aleksandar Kovacevic at Roland Garros.
“Kosovo is our cradle, our stronghold, centre of the most important things for our country... There are many reasons why I wrote that on the camera,” 36-year-old Djokovic told Serb media.
Nato-led peacekeepers on Monday dispersed Serb protesters who again clashed with police in northern Kosovo to demand the removal of recently elected Albanian mayors, as ethnic tensions flared in the Balkan nation.
“I am not a politician and I have no intention to engage in political debates, it is a very sensitive topic,” said Djokovic. “Of course it hurts me very much as a Serb to see what is happening in Kosovo and the way our people have been practically expelled from the municipal offices, so the least I could do was this.”