The biggest stars have begun their mission at the French Open

The second day of the French Open was very busy. The biggest favourites in the men’s section entered the tournament. Among the women, six Czechs. Who is moving on and which big names said goodbye to the top clay court part of the season?

The opening matches of the Czech women’s competition today didn’t bring much joy. Neither the 18-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova nor the experienced Karolina Pliskova could keep up with their opponents. For the former world number one, today’s match means the third defeat in a row.

Petra Kvitova’s evening duels also ended in failure. She raised the Czech flag by dominating the match against the American Parks from 0:2. The native of Sokolov won 6: 4, 6: 0 and is looking forward to the second round.

The 23-year-old Czech even played the final here four years ago. She is still a long way away from that, but her form is increasing every day. At the last tennis event in Rome, she was stopped only in the quarterfinals by the late winner Rybakina, number four in the WTA rankings.

Djokovic, Alcaraz and the others..

In the men’s competition, one of the main favourites, Novak Djokovic, quickly secured his place. He won a smooth two-set match against the American Kovacevic, who is ranked number two in the rankings. In the third set, he did not take advantage of a 5:3 lead, but he won the set and the match in the tiebreak. Seeded number one Carlos Alcaraz did not lose a set against Italian Cobolli, so both big favourites are moving on.

Canadian Auger-Aliassime, the tournament’s number ten, had an unexpectedly early farewell. Against the experienced Italian Fognini, he lost his serve eight times, losing in three sets and thus will not repeat his last year’s campaign to the eight finals. Fognini confirmed that he only says goodbye to the French Open in the first round in very exceptional situations and plans to attack his top result, which is the quarter-finals at Roland Garros.

A star reborn?

Austrian Dominic Thiem entered Roland Garros with big ambitions. Yesterday he ran into Argentina’s Cachin. He was returning balls like a wall. He recorded a minimum of winning shots, but also a minimum of errors. Thiem had to fight for every point, and he couldn’t do that, especially in the first two sets, losing both.

In the third set, the Argentine was close to advancing, serving for the win at 6::5. But the former world number three didn’t wrap things up. Thiem took the fourth set in a tiebreak and won the fourth set as well. However, the Argentine tennis player had more strength left in the deciding set, which at least postponed Thiem’s return to the higher ranks of the ATP rankings.

Source: ATP, Livesport