‘My fighting spirit was on full display’: Tsitsipas wobbles but gets past Vesely, into second round

Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No 5 seed, reached the second round of Roland-Garros by edging out Czech Jiri Vesely 7-5, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7) at Stade Roland-Garros in Paris on Sunday.

He is now 22-0 this year after claiming the first set – but he wobbled in the fourth, with Vesely having four opportunities to take the set and force a decider.

“The match was very inconsistent from my side,” Tsitsipas said in his press conference. “I felt like I haven’t played a match with so much inconsistency in a very long time. There weren’t a lot of rallies in play. He was serving big, so I had to find ways to change that. At times I felt like my footwork was lousy. I think it’s also due to the fact that, as I said, there were not many rallies played which didn’t allow my legs to be activated. Might be because of that.

“But otherwise I’m happy with how things turned around, and my fighting spirit kind of went on full display in those last few points of the tiebreaker. It was a great way to end it by just being patient and waiting for that chance to pop up.”

Tsitsipas, ranked No 5, will face the winner of the match between Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena and American qualifier Emilio Nava next.

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Paris (Grand Slam), other first-round results (Stade Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 49.600.000, most recent results first):

• Thiago Seyboth Wild vs. Daniil Medvedev
• Quentin Halys vs. Guido Pella
• Max Purcell vs. Jordan Thompson
• Yoshihito Nishioka vs. J.J. Wolf
• Hugo Gaston vs. Alex Molcan
• Alexander Zverev vs. Lloyd Harris
• Timofey Skatov vs. Grigor Dimitrov
• Emil Ruusuvuori vs. Gregoire Barrere
• Elias Ymer vs. Casper Ruud
• Alexander Bublik vs. Giulio Zeppieri
• Nicolas Jarry vs. Hugo Dellien
• Tommy Paul vs. Dominic Stricker
• Michael Mmoh vs. Taylor Fritz
• Richard Gasquet vs. Arthur Rinderknech
• Thiago Monteiro vs. Yannick Hanfmann
• Francisco Cerundolo vs. Jaume Munar
• Andrea Vavassori vs. Miomir Kecmanovic
• Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard vs. Genaro Alberto Olivieri
• Gael Monfils vs. Sebastian Baez
• Holger Rune vs. Christopher Eubanks
• Jannik Sinner vs. Alexandre Muller
• Luca Van Assche vs. Marco Cecchinato
• Daniel Altmaier vs. Marc-Andrea Huesler
• Zhizhen Zhang vs. Dusan Lajovic
• Arthur Fils vs. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
• Dominic Thiem vs. Pedro Cachin
• Borna Coric vs. Federico Coria
• Filip Krajinovic vs. Frances Tiafoe
• Botic van de Zandschulp vs. Thiago Agustin Tirante
• Jiri Lehecka vs. Jan-Lennard Struff
• Hamad Medjedovic vs. Marcos Giron
• Carlos Alcaraz vs. Flavio Cobolli
• Novak Djokovic vs. Aleksandar Kovacevic
• Jack Draper vs. Tomas Martin Etcheverry
• Alexei Popyrin vs. Aslan Karatsev
• Stan Wawrinka vs. Albert Ramos-Vinolas
• Roberto Bautista Agut vs. Yibing Wu
• Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Fabio Fognini
• Christopher O’Connell vs. Taro Daniel
• Ilya Ivashka vs. Alex De Minaur
• Juncheng Shang vs. Juan Pablo Varillas
• Bernabe Zapata Miralles vs. Diego Schwartzman
• Benoit Paire vs. Cameron Norrie
• Brandon Nakashima vs. Denis Shapovalov
• Adrian Mannarino vs. Ugo Humbert
• Arthur Cazaux vs. Corentin Moutet
• Laslo Djere vs. Andrey Rublev
• Alexander Shevchenko vs. Oscar Otte
• Ben Shelton vs. Lorenzo Sonego
• Lucas Pouille vs. Jurij Rodionov
• Lorenzo Musetti vs. Mikael Ymer
• Roberto Carballes Baena vs. Emilio Nava: sunday
• Matteo Arnaldi vs. Daniel Elahi Galan: sunday
• Mackenzie McDonald vs. Sebastian Korda: sunday
• John Isner vs. Nuno Borges: sunday
• Jason Kubler vs. Facundo Diaz Acosta: sunday
• Marton Fucsovics beat Hugo Grenier (WC): 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3
• Thanasi Kokkinakis (WC) beat Daniel Evans (20): 6-4, 6-4, 6-4
• Radu Albot (Q) beat Patrick Kypson (WC): 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1
• Karen Khachanov (11) beat Constant Lestienne: 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-3
• Hubert Hurkacz (13) beat David Goffin: 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4
• Tallon Griekspoor beat Pedro Martinez (Q): 6-4, 2-6, 0-6, 7-5, 6-3
• Sebastian Ofner (Q) beat Maxime Cressy: 6-4, 7-6 (6), 6-2