Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz Garfia performs a backhand return to Italy’s Flavio Cobolli throughout their males’s singles match on day two of the Roland-Garros Open tennis match on the Court Suzanne-Lenglen in Paris on May 29, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP
World primary Carlos Alcaraz admitted he felt “invincible” at instances throughout his straight-sets win over Italian qualifier Flavio Cobolli in the French Open first spherical on Monday.
The 20-year-old, the youngest high seed at Roland Garros since Bjorn Borg in 1976, swept to a 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 win over his 159th-ranked opponent.
U.S. Open champion Alcaraz received the primary eight video games of Monday’s match and was comfortably two units up in simply 52 minutes.
In the primary set alone, he allowed his overwhelmed opponent a meagre 10 factors.
“I felt I couldn’t lose a game. I thought that I was able to win easier than I did, but a match can turn around in each game. But at the start of the match, I felt invincible,” he stated.
Cobolli, making his Grand Slam debut, rallied briefly in the third set however was unable to reap the benefits of two break factors in the sixth recreation.
Alcaraz then noticed 4 match factors slip away because the Italian held on to stage at 5-5.
However, the Spaniard wrapped up the tie on a fifth match level in the twelfth recreation.
Next up for Alcaraz is a conflict with Japan’s Taro Daniel for a spot in the final 32.
New York-born Daniel, ranked 112, loved his finest Slam on the Australian Open in 2022 the place he went to the third spherical from qualifying and defeated former world primary Andy Murray in the spherical of 64.
His finest run in Paris was a second spherical look in 2017.
Daniel has flourished on exhausting courts this yr — reaching the quarter-finals in Acapulco and second spherical from qualifying at Indian Wells and Miami.
“I know the level of Taro, so it’s going to be a really tough second round, really tough match,” added Alcaraz.
“So I have to be ready for that, and I have to be prepared for a really tough one.”
