Staff Reporter.
@FrenchOpen.
Swiss eighth seed Roger Federer regained his composure during a heated battle with Croatia’s Marin Cilic to reach the French Open third round.
Federer, 39, had some testy exchanges with the umpire on his way to a 6-2 2-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-2 win on the Paris clay.
Top seed Novak Djokovic produced a focused performance to reach the third round for a 16th consecutive year.
The 34-year-old Serb won 6-3 6-2 6-4 in his first career meeting with tricky Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas.
Djokovic will face Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis, ranked 93rd in the world, in the last 32.
The 18-time Grand Slam champion is aiming for a second title in Paris to follow up his sole win in 2016.
Defending champion Rafael Nadal plays his second-round match in the night session on Chatrier, taking on France’s Richard Gasquet for the right to face British number two Cameron Norrie in the next stage.
While the Spaniard has won a record 13 titles at Roland Garros and is the favourite for another, he is seeded third behind Djokovic and Russia’s Daniil Medvedev because the seeding system is based on the current world rankings.
If Djokovic does lift the Coupe des Mousquetaires on 13 June, the world number one will close the gap on Nadal and Federer in terms of Grand Slam victories to one.
All three players find themselves in the same side of the Roland Garros draw – the first time that this has happened at a major tournament.
Having barely played since the 2020 Australian Open following two knee operations, Federer has been keen to dampen expectations on only his second visit to Roland Garros since 2015.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion says he is focusing on being in prime shape for next month’s Wimbledon – where he has won a record eight men’s singles titles – although privately may harbour higher hopes of a deep run on the Paris clay.
After an impressive opening win against Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin, he faced a step up in quality against former US Open champion Cilic.
Other than in a ragged second set, where Federer lost his cool with the umpire after being warned for taking too long between points, the Swiss star played fluently throughout and looked to be moving well.
“I was a bit surprised by the level I played because I didn’t play so much lately,” said Federer, who faces 59th-ranked Dominik Koepfer of Germany next.
“I was a bit on and off, but I served well in the tie-break. I am very pleased with the result.”
Meanwhile Britain’s Cameron Norrie reached the French Open third round for the first time as he came from a set down to beat South Africa’s Lloyd Harris.
World number 45 Norrie is the last Briton in the singles draw and is likely to face 13-time champion Rafael Nadal after the 4-6 6-3 6-3 6-2 win.
Nadal plays France’s Richard Gasquet in Thursday’s night session.
British number ones Dan Evans and Johanna Konta, as well as Heather Watson, were beaten in the first round.
Norrie, 25, arrived at Roland Garros on a run of good form having reached two finals in May and has now claimed 25 wins in 2021.
The British number two struggled with his first serve early on against world number 54 Harris – making just two of nine in his first two games – and was broken to go 2-1 down.
Norrie had a break point at 3-2, but his backhand sailed long and he could do nothing to contest Harris’ impressive serving for the remainder of the first set.
A more aggressive-looking Norrie came out in the second set and he took advantage as 24-year-old Harris had his own first serve difficulties, breaking to take a 3-1 lead.
Norrie held on to claim the second set and looked increasingly confident as he broke early in the third.
As Harris’ unforced error count rose, so did Norrie’s energy levels and he claimed three more breaks of serve to quickly wrap up the final two sets.
That was a very confident performance from Norrie. He never looked worried about how things were going and he never really changed his game plan.
He just waited for the Harris errors to creep in, which they absolutely did by the end of that match.
Norrie looks so in control out there and has played some fantastic tennis already this week. I think he has improved beyond sight over the last 18 months.