PARIS — Carlos Alcaraz opened his French Open title protection Monday with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win over Giulio Zeppieri, an Italian qualifier who’s ranked 310th.
Alcaraz received all 14 of his service video games, saving the three break factors he confronted, at Courtroom Suzanne-Lenglen.
“It was actually, actually strong,” Alcaraz mentioned. “Actually proud about my begin.”
Elsewhere within the males’s bracket, fourth-seeded American Taylor Fritz crashed out of the match Monday after a 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 loss to Daniel Altmaier of Germany.
Altmaier broke Fritz’s huge serve 5 instances at Courtroom Simonne-Mathieu and ended the Californian’s 15-match Grand Slam profitable streak towards gamers ranked exterior the highest 50.
Alcaraz is seeded No. 2 behind Jannik Sinner, who was scheduled to play Monday night time, and is coming off a clay-court title on the Italian Open a bit greater than every week in the past. Alcaraz beat Sinner within the ultimate there.
Monday’s end result gave Alcaraz 28 wins in his previous 30 matches on pink clay, together with going 7-for-7 a 12 months in the past at Roland-Garros. One of many losses got here towards Novak Djokovic within the gold-medal match ultimately 12 months’s Paris Olympics, held on the similar web site because the French Open.
Additionally Monday, two-time runner-up Casper Ruud started his bid to achieve one other Roland Garros ultimate with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 first-round victory over Spanish qualifier Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
The Related Press and Reuters contributed to this report.