Before the reign of Rafa Nadal, Roland Garros was dominated by an ice cool Swede by the name of Bjorn Borg.

Forty years to the day after Borg’s last of six Roland Garros titles, there was a buzz among the outside courts in Paris as that famous surname appeared on the order of play once more.

Leo Borg, aged 18, is no stranger to the attention and is used to being compared to his famous father, but he also wants to make his surname his own as he starts out on his tennis journey.

“I was having a hard time when I was a little bit younger,” explained Borg after winning his opening round match at Junior Roland Garros on Monday. “People followed me on the court, and I was not used to it. I just have to control it, because it’s going to be following me all during my tennis career, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m just focussing on my goal and my tennis.”

Borg, who makes no secret of the fact that he wants to be a Top 10 player, let his tennis do the talking on Monday and, after some first set nerves, he found his feet to defeat France’s Max Westphal 3-6 6-3 6-4.

“It was a great experience,” he added. “It feels amazing to come out with a win. Always tough with nerves in the beginning. I was not handling it, but I found a way to play my game and to play the game I wanted to in the second and third set, so I’m happy with the win.”

Unlike most players competing at Junior Roland Garros, Borg is able to take advice from one of the best to ever have played the game, but that doesn’t stop him from seeing the legendary Bjorn Borg as anything other than his Dad.

“It’s not a big deal for me,” said Borg. “The best advice he’s given me is to have everything organised – everything in life.

“He always talked about Roland Garros – about how amazing it is and how amazing the club is and now I know that the club is amazing and the crowd is amazing. That’s a really cool feeling that I had never felt before.”

Borg, who did train for a short while at the Rafa Nadal Academy, is now based at the Royal Tennis Club in Sweden, given the travel restrictions imposed by Covid.

And despite growing up on hard courts, he believes that his game is best suited to clay. Whether he will be able to give his father a belated birthday present (Bjorn turned 65 on Sunday) remains to be seen.

“He’s coming on Thursday,” explained Leo. “Let’s hope that I’m still left in the tournament. I want him to see me play, but I can’t promise that I’m going to still be in the tournament.”

Another player following in the family footsteps at this year’s Roland Garros is Russia’s Polina Kudermetova, who advanced to the third round after a hard-fought 6-2 4-6 7-5 battle that lasted two hours and three minutes against Switzerland’s Chelsea Fontenel.

Kudermetova, the younger sister of world No. 30 Veronika Kudermetova, laughed at the fact that she should have closed out the match 6-1 in the third set, but in her words “it went a little bit crazy” before she took the final set 7-5.

And the No. 3 seed in the girls’ draw this year means business, having reached the semi-finals of Junior Roland Garros in October last year.

“I want to win the title,” she said. “It’s the last year [of Juniors]. Roland Garros is a really good tournament, so I will try.”

Something else that she has her sights set on is being one half of a well-known sister pairing on the professional tour.

“Veronika plays really good,” said Kudermetova of her big sister. “I like so much. She plays really aggressive tennis like Serena Williams, so I really want to play some doubles with her! We have lots of sisters on the WTA, so I really want to do it.”

And her route to the title arguably got a boost when No. 2 seed Alexandra Eala of the Philippines lost 6-4 6-7(4) 6-1 to Great Britain’s Matilda Mutavdzic on Monday.

Junior world No. 2 Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva, who is the top seed in Paris without Elsa Jacquemot in the draw, progressed unscathed 6-2 6-2 against Mexico’s Julia Garcia.

Other seeds to progress in the girls’ draw included No. 5 Robin Montgomery (USA), No. 6 Oceane Babel (FRA) and No. 9 Oksana Selekhmeteva (RUS).

In the boys’ draw, the top three seeds, No. 1 Shang Juncheng (CHN), No. 2 Bruno Kuzuhara (USA) and No. 3 Pedro Boscardin Dias (BRA), made it through their first-round matches, but the same could not be said for No. 4 seed Jack Pinnington Jones (GBR), who fell 6-3 6-4 to Poland’s Maks Kasnikowski.