French Open: Philipp Kohlschreiber and Gael Monfils continue, Auger-Aliassime fails early
Philipp Kohlschreiber made a successful start in the French Open. The German won the veteran duel with Fernando Verdasco and is in the second round as well as Gael Monfils , who defeated Albert Ramos Vinolas . However, the Canadian youngster Felix Auger-Aliassime is eliminated.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Jun 01, 2021, 05:38 pm
It was a real veteran duel that won the lottery ticket for the first round of the French Open: 37-year-old Philipp Kohlschreiber against 37-year-old Fernando Verdasco. A close, balanced duel developed early on - round one had to be decided in a tie-break. The Augsburg-based man won 7: 3 in the short decision - and quickly followed suit with 6: 2 leading to the 2-0 set.
His Spanish opponent Verdasco was supposed to succeed in reducing the sets to 2: 1 in the third round, but in the third round it was again the German who should put his stamp on the game. At the score of 5: 2 Kohlschreiber had to accept another rebreak, but the German finally served with a little stomachache to 7: 6 (3), 6: 2, 2: 6 and 6: 4 victory. Kohlschreiber now meets from Aslan Karatsev.
Monfils continues
Also in the second round is the French Gael Monfils, who recently struggled with a tough negative run. In his opening match against the Spaniard Albert Ramos Vinolas, however, the local hero managed the turnaround early after the top 20 man, supervised by Günter Bresnik, lost set one 6-1. Monfils won a hard-fought second round in the tie-break and finally made it into the round of the last 64 with 6: 4 and 6: 4 in sets three and four.
The Canadian youngster Felix Auger-Aliassime, who caused the second big surprise of the day at the Bois de Bolougne with his defeat against 37-year-old Andreas Seppi, had to give up the sails. Andrey Rublev had previously failed because of Jan-Lennard Struff. The Italian Seppi had not won a match in the calendar year 2021, but now prevailed against Auger-Aliassime in four sets.