French Open: Djokovic passes opening test

Novak Djokovic started his bid for a menrsquos record 23rd Grand Slam singles title with a straightsets victory over Aleksandar Kovacevic in the French Open first round on Monday as Carlos Alcaraz waited to open his tournamentTwotime Roland Garros champion Djokovic held off a late rally from his American opponent on Court Philippe Chatrier to clinch a 63 62 76 71 victory He has still not lost in his opening match of a major since the 2006 Australian OpenldquoIrsquom very motivated to stay in this tournament for a long time itrsquos just the start nowrdquo said Djokovic after kicking off his 19th consecutive French Open campaign ldquoIrsquom happy Irsquove started well and hope I can improve further for the next matchrdquo The 36yearold will face Hungarian Marton Fucsovics who he has beaten four times in as many meetings in the second roundFelix AugerAliassimeDjokovic is only seeded third at Roland Garros this year despite the absence of his great rival and 14time winner Rafael Nadal through injury behind World No 1 Alcaraz and Daniil MedvedevHe is tied with Nadal for most menrsquos Slam singles trophies and just one behind the 23 of Serena Williams Margaret Court holds the alltime record of 24Kovacevic the World No 114 playing in his first Grand Slam match battled hard but could not put Djokovic under sustained pressure until it was too late One break in the sixth game was enough for the Serbian star to take the opening set before he raced through the secondDjokovic broke to love to start the third set before saving three break points in the second game Kovacevic did break for the first time in the match to level the set at 33 only to drop serve again immediatelyAlso Read Djokovic and World No1 Alcaraz in same half of French Open drawKovacevic fights backDjokovic uncharacteristically stumbled when serving for the match as Kovacevic forced a tiebreak to the delight of the crowd But the World No 3 quickly regrouped dominating the breaker before ending Kovacevicrsquos resistance on his first match point with a thumping forehand returnCanadian 10th seed Felix AugerAliassime suffered a third defeat at the opening hurdle in four visits to Roland Garros as he lost 46 46 36 to Fabio Fognini The unpredictable Italian who himself has lost in the first round six times in nine tournaments so far this season pulled off a shock win on Court Simonne MathieuThe World No 52 will next face Australian Jason KublerBritish 14th seed Cameron Norrie came through a fiveset thriller on Court Suzanne Lenglen to beat home wildcard Benoit Paire 75 46 36 61 64 Last yearrsquos Wimbledon semifinalist will take on Frenchman Lucas Pouille for a thirdround berthShapovalov beats NakashimaCanadian Denis Shapovalov scraped past Brandon Nakashima 64 75 46 36 63 Chinese hopes of a first menrsquos singles match win at the French Open since 1937 were dashed as Wu Yibing lost 76 74 61 61 to Robert Bautista Agut and Shang Juncheng was beaten 46 26 62 63 61 by Juan Pablo Varillas In the womenrsquos draw former runnerup Sloane Stephens dumped out 16th seed Karolina Pliskova 60 64 Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova the losing finalist in 2021 brushed aside Czech teenager Linda Fruhvirtova 62 62 Croatian 22nd seed Donna Vekic and American Madison Keys also secured their places in round two Later Monday Alcaraz begins his bid for a second Grand Slam title against Italian qualifier Flavio CobolliThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever