DPA<\/p>\n
Paris <\/p>\n
Second-seed Alexander Zverev had a comfortable start into the French Open on Sunday with a largely convincing 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 victory over local player Benjamin Bonzi.<\/p>\n
Zverev won six games in a row after dropping serve for the only time in the eighth game of the second set on the sun-drenched centre court en route to victory in 2 hours 8 minutes on second match point.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery good start to the tournament. It\u2019s always nice to start with a straight-sets win, especially against Benjamin, who can cause a lot of problems to top players,\u201d Zverev said in his on-court interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll around, I think a good performance that I can build on. I have to build on it, but very happy with the start.\u201d <\/p>\n
The German is still searching for his first title at the majors. He was a three-time semi-finalist at Roland Garros and lost the 2024 final against Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n
However, in order to lift the trophy he will probably have to beat in-form Jannik Sinner who is on a 29-match win the streak and the overwhelming title favourite in the injury-related absence of twice reigning champion Alcaraz.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz\u2019 withdrawal promoted world number three Zverev to second seed and means he could not face Sinner until the June 7 final. Sinner has won the last nine matches against Zverev.<\/p>\n
Zverev\u2019s next opponent is Czech Tomas Machac as world number 95 Bonzi was no real match for him although the Frenchman fought well for at least two sets.<\/p>\n
Zverev broke for 4-2 on a forehand error from Bonzi. He failed to close out the set two games later by wasting a pair of set points but then served out matters in the next game by succeeding on his fifth attempt on another Bonzi error.<\/p>\n
The German broke again in the fifth game of the second set but it was all square again at 4-4 when Zverev committed his first double fault on Bonzi\u2019s first break point of the match.<\/p>\n
Zverev was however undeterred, broke again in the following game and also won the next five games to lead by two sets and 4-0. Bonzi finally got on the scoreboard but Zverev then got over the line when Bonzi hit a return long.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn five-set matches in Grand Slams, there are always going to be ups and downs, especially in the beginning of tournaments,\u201d Zverev said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always have to stay focused, you always have to come back to yourself, play your best tennis. When he broke me in the second set, I broke him straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DPA Paris Second-seed Alexander Zverev had a comfortable start into the French Open on Sunday with a largely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[243,1960,1961,1962,1959],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alexander-zverev","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-makes","tag-promising","tag-start","tag-zverev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}