Carlos Alcaraz begins French Open title defense with victory

PARIS — Carlos Alcaraz opened his French Open title defense Monday with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win over Giulio Zeppieri, an Italian qualifier who is ranked 310th.

Alcaraz won all 14 of his service games, saving the three break points he faced, at Court Suzanne-Lenglen.

“It was really, really solid,” Alcaraz said. “Really proud about my start.”

Alcaraz is seeded No. 2 behind Jannik Sinner, who was scheduled to play Monday night, and is coming off a clay-court title at the Italian Open a little more than a week ago. Alcaraz beat Sinner in the final there.

Monday’s result gave Alcaraz 28 wins in his past 30 matches on red clay, including going 7-for-7 a year ago at Roland-Garros. One of the losses came against Novak Djokovic in the gold-medal match at last year’s Paris Olympics, held at the same site as the French Open.

Elsewhere in the men’s bracket Monday, two-time runner-up Casper Ruud began his bid to reach another Roland Garros final with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 first-round victory over Spanish qualifier Albert Ramos-Vinolas.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: espn.com