Alcaraz overcomes blip to progress to round three

French Open 2025

Location: Roland Garros, May 25 – June

Former French Open champion Stefanos Tsitsipas and Casper Ruud are both out, but defending champion Carlos Alcaraz overcame a blip in form to defeat Fabian Marozsan.

Spanish Open champion Alcaraz won 6-1, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 over his Hungarian opponent after starting strong but dropping the second set.

Greek 20th seed Tsitsipas, who lost 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, and 6-4 to world number 167 Matteo Gigante of Italy, had no such success.

Ruud, who had previously finished second in Paris, injured himself in the final set of his four-set set-blank defeat against Portugal’s Nuno Borges.

He “started to play much better and be very aggressive in the second set.” The 22-year-old said that because he didn’t miss any shots in the second set, it was a little challenging to control his game.

“But I’m really happy that I kept up my strength and mental vigor.” I improved as I played, which made for a really good final two sets.

Alcaraz won titles in Monte Carlo and Rome before the French Open, and he showed it right away when he broke three times to win the first set within 28 minutes.

Marozsan broke early in a scrappy second set before overcoming the second seed to level the match.

Alcaraz, a four-time Grand Slam champion, did a good job of surviving the final fifteen minutes to survive.

Tsitsipas lost in the 2021 final to Novak Djokovic in an epic five-setter, making it another early Grand Slam exit.

The 26-year-old’s first defeat at Roland Garros since 2018 is the fact that he has now failed to make it past the second round in four of his previous major appearances.

Tsitsipas will now, for the first time since August 2018, fall outside of the top 20 of the world.

Gigante, who is making his French Open debut after qualifying, is given a third-round meeting with American 13th seed Ben Shelton. He also won the biggest win of his career.

In other instances, Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe, both Americans, made it to the last 32 despite varying circumstances.

After falling two sets to Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics, Paul, the 12th seed, made an impressive comeback.

Karen Khachanov, the 24th seed of Russia, beat Sebastian Ofner, who won 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 in round three.

The 15th seeded opponent was Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta, who won 6-4, 6-3, and 6-1.

Holger Rune, the Danish 10th seed, defeated American world number 138 Emilio Nada 6-3 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 in the evening session on Court Philippe Chatrier.

Meanwhile, eighth-seed Lorenzo Musetti of Italy advanced to the third round by defeating Daniel Galan of Colombia 6-4, 6-0, 6-4.

Jacob Fearnley, who won his first French Open singles match on Monday, defeated Colombia’s Nicolas Barrientos and India’s Rithvik Bollipalli 6-0, 6-2, in the men’s doubles match.