Carlos Alcaraz navigated the second hurdle of his French Open title defence impressively as he downed Fabian Marozsan in four sets.
The No 2 seed downed the dangerous Marozsan 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Court Philippe-Chatrier in the second round of the Paris major.
Alcaraz broke Marozsan eight times and was dominant in sets one, three and four, while the world No 56 showed the threat he poses in the second set.
The Spaniard was upset by Marozsan in his first encounter with the Hungarian at the 2023 Italian Open.
In his on-court interview with tennis great Mats Wilander, Alcaraz was asked if he is having fun every time he plays.
“Most of the time (laughs). Sometimes, it’s difficult to have fun on the court, you know, I had to suffer. It depends on the opponent as well,” the 22-year-old said.
“But most of the time, I’m trying to not think about anything else but enjoying playing, enjoying being on these kind of courts.
“The Philippe-Chatrier is a really beautiful court, so I have to enjoy once I step on the court. Just trying to show good tennis, trying to make the people happy to watch my matches as well. That’s the way I enjoy playing tennis.”
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The four-time Grand Slam champion added: “It was a great, great match. I started pretty well, the first set I had a really high confidence.
“I think the second set, he started to play much better, really aggressively. He didn’t miss at all, so it was a little bit difficult to deal with his game in the second set.
“But really happy to stay strong, just refreshed in the third set, started to play better and better and have been a really good last two sets.”
Alcaraz’s win against Marozsan was his 20th victory at the French Open in just his 23rd match at the tournament.
Since the turn of the century, only Rafael Nadal has reached 20 wins at Roland Garros in fewer matches, with the Mallorcan titan having won all of his first 20 matches. Nadal, a 14-time champion at the French Open, was undefeated in his first 31 matches at the clay-court Slam.
Alcaraz also has the third-highest ATP win percentage on clay among players who have contested at least 25 matches on the surface, with an outstanding 98-19 (83.8%) record.
Nadal (90.5%) and Bjorn Borg (86.1%) are the only men with a better win rate on clay.
Alcaraz will face either Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard or Damir Dzumhur in the third round.
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