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.”

Elsewhere in the men’s bracket, fourth-seeded American Taylor Fritz crashed out of the tournament Monday after a 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 loss to Daniel Altmaier of Germany.

Altmaier broke Fritz’s big serve five times at Court Simonne-Mathieu and ended the Californian’s 15-match Grand Slam winning streak against players ranked outside the top 50.

Alcaraz is seeded No. 2 behind Jannik Sinner but coming off a clay-court title at the Italian Open a little more than a week ago. Alcaraz beat Sinner in the final there.

Sinner won in straight sets Monday, defeating Arthur Rinderknech 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 to stretch his Grand Slam winning streak to 15 matches.

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.

Also 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.

Former runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas made light work of Tomas Martin Etcheverry, defeating the Argentine 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

Briton Jacob Fearnley eased past three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka, beating the 40-year-old Swiss 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-2.

Richard Gasquet, in his final French Open appearance, dispatched fellow Frenchman Terence Atmane 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 6-0.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.