By Shrivathsa Sridhar
PARIS (Reuters) – Carlos Alcaraz came through a tricky early test at the French Open with flying colours, as the world number one sealed a 6-1 3-6 6-1 6-2 victory over Japan’s Taro Daniel on Wednesday to reach the third round.
Alcaraz enjoyed a dominant opening win over Flavio Cobolli in his first match as the top seed in a Grand Slam and the 20-year-old made another blistering start against Daniel to ease through the first set on the back of two breaks.
Daniel pounced early in the next to grab a 3-0 lead before Alcaraz got on the board. He continued to batter the suddenly error-prone Spaniard with some relentless hitting from the baseline before levelling the contest.
But the Japanese player, who is ranked 112, was quickly on the back foot again as Alcaraz regained focus to break early and close out the third set in style conceding only one game late on.
With normal service having resumed, Alcaraz closed out the match on serve to book an encounter with Canadian 26th seed Denis Shapovalov.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Paris; Editing by Toby Davis)
