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| 03 Jun 2001 | |
| Falla on fire as Roland Garros Open |
By Chris Bowers
The weather on the western edge of Paris wasn’t hot enough to be a scorcher, but Alejandro Falla has continued the hot streak that saw him win in Milan to reach the second round of Roland Garros.
The 17-year-old Colombian lefthander with the fluent groundstrokes and footwork won his first match at the French with a hard-earned 7-6 7-5 win over France’s Julien Maigret, beating both Maigret and a crowd numbering several hundred partisan spectators hoping to cheer on a home win.
And with Maigret leading 4-1 with a double break in the first set, an upset was beginning to look possible. But Falla then found his rhythm, started moving around the court with his customary fluency, and kept the ball away from Maigret’s big forehand.
Falla could have won the first set with a run of five games having reversed the deficit to lead 5-4, but the Frenchman, who is coached by France’s former Davis Cup doubles player Olivier Delaitre, saved two set points at 5-4 with some great defence based around his sliced backhand, and was able to take the first set into the tiebreak. But while the breaker was always close, Falla won four points in a row from the changeover at 3-3 to take it in just under an hour.
Maigret should have got away early in the second, but despite a 2-0 lead, Falla kept moving him around the court, using his open-stance forehand to great effect. And though Maigret was in the match until the end, Falla’s confidence saw him finish the job thanks to a break in the 11th game.
It was day of shocks in the boys’ singles, with five seeds falling at the first round stage. Fourteen-year-old French wild card Richard Gasquet scored the biggest upset with his 6-7(6) 6-2 6-3 victory over world No. 4 Ytai Abougzir of the United States. Gasquet, who has already won two ITF Junior Circuit events this year, said: "This is a very first step for me. I’m not setting myself any goals, but am going to try and go as far as I can. Many players are three years older than I am, so it’s not easy."
Another French wild card entry Mathieu Montcourt joined Gasquet in the second round with a 6-4 6-4 triumph over Australian Open finalist Yeu-Tzuoo Wang of Chinese Taipei.
Mexico’s Bruno Echagaray, the third seed, was also an early casualty, losing 7-5 5-7 8-6 to Croatian Sasa Tuksar. Roman Valent of Switzerland went down 7-6(6) 6-3 to Britain’s Andrew Banks, while Swede Robin Soederling lost 7-5 6-4 to Algerian wild card Lamine Ouahab.
The last time Dinara Safina played at Roland Garros she was ecstatic to win one game in last year’s girls doubles final, which she and Matea Mazek lost 6-0 6-1 to Maria-Jose Martinez and Anabel Medina of Spain. This year the 15-year-old Russian is one of the singles seeds, and came through her first round match against Israeli Tetiana Luzanska 6-2 6-1, just a day after her brother Marat crashed out of the third round of the men’s singles.
Safina now plays one of the rising stars from Africa, Ferial Esseghir from Algeria, who had a straight sets win over France’s Camille Dubois.
The top four seeds in the girls singles – Aniko Kapros, Jelena Jankovic, Gisela Dulko and Kaia Kanepi – all won without dropping a set, but there was defeat for one of the seeds in the 5/8 slots, Eva Birnerova of the Czech Republic. She was beaten 6-2 4-6 6-3 by Myriam Casanova of Switzerland.
Click here to view the 2001 Roland Garros picture gallery.
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