Swiatek, Alcaraz and Djokovic start the 2024 Olympics tennis event with wins at French Open site

PARIS -- PARIS (AP) — Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz got the Paris Olympics tennis competition started with first-round victories Saturday under closed roofs at Roland Garros, the site of their French Open titles less than two months ago.

Novak Djokovic also won in straight sets as he, like Swiatek and Alcaraz, opened a bid for a first Olympic gold medal. Djokovic's second-round opponent could be longtime rival Rafael Nadal, who was scheduled to play his opening singles match Sunday.

Nadal, the Spaniard who won a record 14 of his 22 Grand Slam titles at the French Open and owns two Summer Games golds, was a surprise torch carrier during the rain-soaked opening ceremony along the Seine River on Friday night and was slated to compete alongside Alcaraz in doubles on Saturday night.

The No. 1-ranked Swiatek claimed four of her five career major championships in Paris and grabbed the last four games to beat Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2, 7-5, while reigning French Open and Wimbledon champ Alcaraz defeated Lebanon’s Hady Habib 6-3, 6-1.

Serbia's Djokovic, who is seeded No. 1 in the men's field after Jannik Sinner pulled out with tonsillitis, needed less than an hour to dismiss Australia's Matthew Ebden — a doubles player participating in a tour-level singles match for the first time in two years. Ebden got into the singles bracket because he was in Paris to play doubles and thus available when 16th-ranked Holger Rune of Denmark withdrew with an injured wrist.

Ebden's lone game came after he was already down 6-0, 4-0 — and he celebrated by pulling the front of his yellow shirt over his head and baring his chest to roars from the flag-dotted crowd.

Poland's Swiatek, who won a third consecutive championship at Court Philippe Chatrier just seven weeks ago, got broken in that same stadium to trail 5-3 in the second set before getting back to her usual clay-court expertise. She wrapped up the victory by breaking at love when Begu double-faulted on the last point.

Day 1 of tennis began with showers that might have contributed to slow lines for umbrella-toting spectators at the facility's security checks near entrances and postponed by at least 4 1/2 hours the start of matches at the 10 courts without retractable roofs.

It’s a good thing the French tennis federation built a pair of movable covers recently: 15,000-capacity Chatrier added one in 2020, and the second-largest arena, 10,000-capacity Court Suzanne Lenglen, has one as of this year.

Italy's Jasmine Paolini, who was the runner-up to Swiatek at the French Open in June and to Barbora Krejcikova at Wimbledon two weeks ago, was the first tennis player to win a match at these Summer Games, eliminating Romania's Ana Bogdan 7-5, 6-3 at Lenglen.

Among the other big names from the sport scheduled to play later Saturday was four-time major champion Naomi Osaka.

Coco Gauff, the female flag bearer for the United States on Friday, was slated to make her Olympic debut Saturday with Jessica Pegula in doubles. Gauff won the French Open doubles title with Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic last month and the U.S. Open singles trophy last September.

Three years ago, Gauff missed the Tokyo Games after testing positive for COVID-19 right before she was supposed to fly to Japan.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games