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Australia’s Nick Kyrgios has made a good start to his French Open campaign after surviving the dogged challenge of Italian Marco Cecchinato to reach the second round for the third time in the last four years.
The 21-year-old kicked off proceedings on Court One and while many tipped him to defeat his 124th-ranked opponent without any fuss, he was pushed into tiebreaks in the first and second sets but was able to win them both 8-6.
A break midway through the third set, the only one of the match, was enough for Kyrgios to win the third set 6-4 and thus proceed to round two, where lucky loser Igor Sijsling now awaits.
But the victory wasn’t without any controversy as the Canberran was given a code violation by experienced tennis umpire Carlos Ramos for the way he requested a towel from a ball boy during the opening set tiebreak.
It came a week after he clashed with Australia’s Olympic Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller online over whether he should be allowed to participate at the Rio Olympics in August, and four months after he clashed with an umpire over crowd noise in his third round match against Tomas Berdych at the Australian Open in January.
Kyrgios had been (and still is) on notice following the completion of a six-month suspended sentence in February following derogatory comments he made about Stan Wawrinka’s girlfriend at a Masters event in Montreal last August.
Since then, the 21-year-old has made good efforts to improve his behaviour and performances, and has notched up five top-ten victories this year, second only to world number one Novak Djokovic.
In addition, he won his first ATP title in Marseille and recently pushed Rafael Nadal to three sets in Rome, losing only 6-4 in the deciding set, that coming a week after he defeated reigning French Open champion Stan Wawrinka in Madrid.
But his latest indiscretion in Paris could further decrease his chances of representing his country at the Rio Olympics in August. Already Bernard Tomic has jumped the gun on his own chances by pulling out, citing a busy playing schedule.
19th seed Benoit Paire also progressed, but required five sets to defeat Moldova’s Radu Albot. The final score was 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.
Meanwhile, in the women’s division, tenth seed and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova survived a huge scare from determined opponent Danka Kovinic to post a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 victory in the first match played on Philippe-Chatrier Court.
Kvitova was given the honour of kicking off proceedings on the main Centre Court at Roland Garros and after she took the opening set 6-2 in 39 minutes, the Czech appeared headed for a regulation day in the office.
She then took a 3-0 lead in the second set and had game points for 4-0 before Kovinic mounted her comeback, taking it 6-4 to send the match to a third and deciding set, something which would again test Kvitova’s mentality.
The third set appeared evenly poised before a couple of double faults from Kvitova saw her broken at 4-all, giving Kovinic the chance to serve for the match and the first major upset of the tournament.
But from deuce in the tenth game, the 26-year-old would break back to level at 5-all, hold her serve in the eleventh then break in the twelfth to secure the victory and thus reach the second round for the sixth consecutive year.
She now faces Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei for a place in the third round.
Earlier, 24th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova became the first women’s winner when she dismissed Spanish qualifier Sara Sorribes Tomo in straight sets, dropping just two games in the process.
And Swiss qualifier Viktorija Golubic outlasted American Alison Riske, winning in three sets to progress to the second round where eleventh seed and last year’s finalist, Lucie Safarova, is likely to await.
Please note that this article only summaries completed matches so far on Day 1. Here is the progress of some of the other matches being played at the time of this article going to print.
* Japanese fifth seed Kei Nishikori has taken the first set against Italian Simone Bolelli 6-1, and currently leads 5-4 on serve in the second;
* American 23rd seed Jack Sock leads Robin Haase by two sets to one;
* Lucie Safarova has dropped a bagel on Russian Vitalia Diatchenko; and
* 2009 women’s champion Svetlana Kuznetsova has just dropped the opening set 6-4 to two-time quarter-finalist Yaroslava Shvedova, but currently leads 3-0 in the second.
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