The first good French performance of this Roland-Garros will not have dragged on. Invited to play his very first Grand Slam main draw by the FFT, the 177th world Enzo Couacaud clearly dominated the 78th ATP, Egor Gerasimov (7-6, 6-4, 6-3), Sunday on the court number 9.
Security will have had a hard time enforcing social distancing in the stands, crowded to witness the first French victory of the day. Under sweat masks, it sang to encourage “La Couac”. It upset, too, an opponent far from being a king of sliding because he seemed to be walking on eggshells on Parisian soil. “Wonderful return, keep it up”, launched a spectator after a woody forehand from the Belarusian, who did not really show much fighting spirit in the third set, folded in barely thirty minutes.
Pablo Carreno Busta in the second round
Quack, he was very applied, sometimes brilliant, like this cushioned deposited behind the net to save a breakout ball, 5-3 in his favor in the second round. The repeated unforced errors of his opponent (41 in total) at times pushed him to be too wait-and-see, far behind his line. But each time he took the initiative, behind a technically very clean setback, the 26-year-old was irretrievably scoreless.
Couacaud, who had experienced a delicate spring with six consecutive defeats in the first round on the Challenger circuit before relaunching last week with a final in Biella, will face Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta in the second round. The 12th world did not tremble for his entry into contention against Norbert Gombos (6-3, 6-4, 6-3).
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