Carlos Alcaraz begins French Open title defense with victory
PARIS — Carlos Alcaraz opened his French Open title defense Monday with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win over Giulio Zeppieri, an Italian qualifier who is ranked 310th.
Alcaraz won all 14 of his service games, saving the three break points he faced, at Court Suzanne-Lenglen.
“It was really, really solid,” Alcaraz said. “Really proud about my start.”
Elsewhere in the men’s bracket, fourth-seeded American Taylor Fritz crashed out of the tournament Monday after a 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 loss to Daniel Altmaier of Germany.
Altmaier broke Fritz’s big serve five times at Court Simonne-Mathieu and ended the Californian’s 15-match Grand Slam winning streak against players ranked outside the top 50.
Alcaraz is seeded No. 2 behind Jannik Sinner, who was scheduled to play Monday night, and is coming off a clay-court title at the Italian Open a little more than a week ago. Alcaraz beat Sinner in the final there.
Monday’s result gave Alcaraz 28 wins in his past 30 matches on red clay, including going 7-for-7 a year ago at Roland-Garros. One of the losses came against Novak Djokovic in the gold medal match at last year’s Paris Olympics, held at the same site as the French Open.
Also Monday, two-time runner-up Casper Ruud began his bid to reach another Roland-Garros final with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 first-round victory over Spanish qualifier Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Former runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas made light work of Tomas Martin Etcheverry, defeating the Argentine 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.
Briton Jacob Fearnley eased past three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka, beating the 40-year-old Swiss 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-2.
Richard Gasquet, in his final French Open appearance, dispatched fellow Frenchman Terence Atmane 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 6-0.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
