After a jam-packed opening three days of tennis, the first round of this year’s French Open is in the books, as the draw has now been exactly cut down to half of what it was on Sunday morning. We have had upsets, expected results, some surprise breakthroughs, and farewells to icons of the game. Here is your complete first-round recap.
French Open Men’s First Round Recap
Biggest Upsets of the Round
In total, eight seeds fell in the opening round of this year’s edition of the French Open, including the second-highest-seeded American, Taylor Fritz, who has been dealing with injury issues for most of the year.
Alexander Bublik also fell early in four sets to the very capable Jan-Lennard Struff, a result that, although imaginable, was still an upset given the discrepancy in their rankings.
But the upset of the first round had to be Daniil Medvedev crashing out early in Paris yet again, as he has now lost in the first round at the French Open in seven of his ten tournament entries. The Russian, although not known for his clay game, had a very solid run in Rome coming into the French Open, but he failed to back that up, going out in a five-set match against Adam Walton.
Performance of the Round
Some of the usual suspects show up here, including Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev, both of whom had clinical first-round performances, as expected. Coming back from injury-riddled spells, Hubert Hurkacz and Matteo Berrettini also had confidence-inducing performances on the Parisian clay.
But for me, the performance of the first round was undoubtedly by Rafael Jodar. At 19 years old, in his first appearance at the French Open, and with the pressure of expectation given his clay swing, the Spaniard had a dominant performance, dropping just five games and becoming the first player since Novak Djokovic to do so on his French Open debut.
Match of the Round
A total of ten five-set matches were played during the first round, but not all of them had the quality to become classics.
Casper Ruud and Roman Safiullin traded heat strokes in their encounter, Walton and Medvedev were plagued by bad unforced errors, and Martin Landaluce dragged his match out far longer than he should have. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina against Damir Dzumhur was also a contender here. While that match became a five-set encounter because of the Spaniard’s physical issues, it still had everything.
But it just fell short to the fifth-set match tiebreak encounter between Felix Auger-Aliassime and Daniel Altmaier. Popcorn points, aggressive play, the eventual loser being a couple of points away from victory, and ultimately the seemingly down-and-out player channeling a second wind to complete the comeback. In short, peak Slam tennis.
Biggest Talking Point
While the tennis and the withdrawals of players produced enough talking points, the biggest talking point for me in the first round was the French Open bidding farewell to two of its icons.
First, Stan Wawrinka, champion in 2015 and a finalist in 2017, fell in four sets, but not before he gave Paris one last glimpse of his patented backhand. Then it was Gael Monfils, who in the night session ran out of gas in a five-set match in front of a passionate crowd.
Tennis was better with these two competing at the highest level, and while we will cherish what is left of them this remaining season, knowing they will never again compete on the Parisian clay will only bring sadness.
Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
