French Open 2016: Day 1 Highlights

The French Open 2016 inaugurated on the 22^nd of May with some very key matches starting the tournament on a key note, however a few matches were ruined due to the rain gods which halted the major part of the first day at the Roland Garros 2016.

The first day saw only 10 matches completed and we assess the most important matches among these in brief, giving you a whole sense of all that transpired on the first day of the 2^nd grand slam of the year.

Petra Kvitová, the no.10 seed in the WTA took on Kovinic in the first round match of women’s singles in French Open 2016. Kvitova’s chances of coming out victorious looked dim as she won the first set but lost the second and it felt that the momentum was with Kovinic. She however fought back from the scare of eviction and won the last set “just”, breaking Kovinic’d 1  serve and winning 7-5 in the 3^rd and final set.

Lucie Šafářová who in ranked 11^th in the world had a much easier outing in the first day of the tournament, winning her match comfortably against V.Diatchenko, 6-0 6-2. She is a Czech player who has rose to fame in the WTA and it remains to be seen if she has what it takes to win at a grand slam, the biggest achievement of her career remains reaching the quarter finals of the 2007 Australian open.

Shifting focus from women’s singles to men’s singles – the young 20 year old Nick Kyrgios, an aggressive and sometimes foul mouthed but spirited tennis star took on Marco Ceccihanato.

The match is gaining social media buzz due to yet another controversial outing for the Australian tennis star in Kyrgios who was seen having an argument with the chair umpire – more than once. The tournament has only begun and Kyrgios seems to be frustrated already with the standard of umpiring and it remains to be seen if he can control this aggression or rather use it judiciously in his game which is a joy to watch in any case.

To remind our readers; Kyrgios has often faced flag from fans for his dismissive attitude to match officials and has often been criticized by former Australian tennis greats for his attitude but it also makes him a fan favorite – can his aggression guide him to French open glory?

In his first match, Kyrgios had a much tougher outing than he would have liked. The first set went into a tie-break and Kyrgios big serve and across court reach helped him seize the tiebreak with 7-6(8-6), the second set was no easier as it was a repeat of the first with similar score line, Kyrgios was now however 2-0 up and a break of serve for Ceccihanato in the 3^rd set guided Kyrgios to second round with a 6-4 win in the 3^rd set.

That’s pretty much the 3 key matches of the day which transpired between some of the top seeds at the tournament, the much bigger names of tennis in Murray and Djokovic took on the court on day 2 – hopefully the rain doesn’t play the same spoil sport as on day 1, leaving fans in dismay.

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