In the first round of the French Open (Roland Garros) tennis tournament, Hungarian tennis player Márton Fucsovics, who is currently 63rd in the world rankings, defeated the 4th seeded Russian player Daniil Medvedev 6: 4, 7: 6, 2: 6, 6: 1, who is ranked 4th in the world. The Hungarian tennis player will meet the Spanish Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the next round on Thursday.
Márton Fucsovics started the match well, playing patiently but aggressively on a cool Paris night at the Suzanne Lenglen court. The Hungarian player, who stands 63rd in the world rankings, broke at 4:4 and was able to serve for the first set, which he closed in style with an ace and won 6: 4. In the second set, the Russian broke his racket at a 6:3 Fucsovics lead. As he had previously been warned by the referee and therefore received a point penalty, Fucsovics won this set as well. In the third set, the 24-year-old Russian pulled the game to 6: 2 in 34 minutes, but Fucsovics again won the fourth set to 6: 1.
The athlete from Nyíregyháza, the first Hungarian to win an ATP title in 36 years back in 2018 in Geneva, has played against the top ten ranked players 14 times so far and has always lagged behind. He also defeated Medvedev for the first time in the five times they met and won his first Grand Slam tournament against the top 10 players. The last Hungarian male tennis player to achieve this was 37 years ago: in May 1983, Balázs Taróczy beat the then world leader Ivan Lendl in Hamburg.
The Roland Garros website quoted the Hungarian tennis player as saying after the game that “It’s one of my biggest wins tonight,” adding that: “First time I beat a top-10 player, especially in a Grand Slam. I really wanted to show that I’m a very good player, and I also want to be in the top 10.”
However, based on a short interview with Hungarian sport portal Nemzeti Sport, Márton Fucsovics sees the defeat of 5th-ranked Daniil Medvedev as a first-round advance, and from now on he is focused only on his next task. He said, “now those at the forefront know, respect, and accept me, they know that I am a dangerous opponent, so I have no reason to overestimate the success of the first match.”
Fucsovics, who advanced after 3 hours 17 minutes to the next round, will next play against Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the second round, who is currently 44th in the world rankings. The 32-year-old Spanish defeated Adrian Mannarino in three sets in the first round.
Julien De Rosa/MTI/EPA