A HUGE day one of the 2020 Roland Garros began with a couple of intriguing winners on the list among a plethora of seeds. As expected, top seed Simona Halep dominated her contest to head through to the second round, as did six of her fellow seeds.

Halep was clinical in her effort against Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo, running away with a 6-4 6-0 win on her 29th birthday. In another interesting twist, it was the first women’s game under the new Court Philippe Chatrier roof, with drizzly proceedings for most of the day not disrupting the centre court.

“The perfect present was that I won today, of course,” Halep said at her post-match press conference. “It was a really special day playing on Roland Garros on my birthday. So it’s going to be pretty unique, maybe forever.”

While a tense first set saw both players fight hard, Halep was able to fight through the cold and Sorribes Tormo’s strong efforts. It certainly was not Halep’s cleanest effort, hitting 23 winners for 23 unforced errors, but fought back from 2-4 down early in the first to win the next four games and head into the second set with the momentum, unwilling to relinquish control. 

“At the beginning I just wanted to be aggressive and to hit the balls everywhere,” said Halep. “But [Sorribes Tormo] was so strong on the legs, and she didn’t miss at all. And also, her ball is coming a little bit higher and with a lot of topspin, so it’s not easy to play from up to the shoulder. And then I just started to open the court better, to go slower, and to work for every ball, which I did very well.”

A couple of unseeded talents came out firing though, with shock exits from Johanna Konta, Dayana Yastremska and Anett Kontaveit making for some big wins to lower ranked talent. Coco Gauff got the chocolates over ninth seed Konta with a 6-3 6-3 victory, while Australian Daria Gavrilova made an excellent return with a 6-4 6-3 victory over 24th seed Yastremska. Carolina Garcia toppled Kontaveit in a tighter three set contest, taking just over two hours to gain the 6-4 3-6 6-4 victory.

It was Gauff’s first main draw match at the Roland Garros, with the 16-year-old the youngest of 11 teenagers in the draw. 

“I know that [Konta] likes to play really hard and play the ball into her,” Gauff said. “So coming into the match I already knew I was going to change the pace and everything. To be honest, I was surprised how good the slice was today.

“I mean, the backhand slice I work on a lot. It’s not the best, but I try to work on it. The forehand slice, I think it was just natural. I knew I had to change up the pace of the ball, especially in the conditions.”

“I don’t really take anything for granted, because I’m just happy to be playing,” Gauff said. “I don’t think maybe winning matches at slams is something I’m used to, especially this is my first main draw at Roland Garros. When I’m on the court, I can act like I’m used to it. When I’m off the court, I’m just happy to be here.”

Comparatively, seeds in Victoria Azarenka, Elise Mertens, Maria Sakkari, Barbora Strycova, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Yulia Putintseva all joined the winners list with straight sets wins, seeing Azarenka come away with the quickest victory in 61 minutes over Danka Kovinic 6-1 6-2. In other games, Barbora Krejcikova, Aliaksandra Sasnovich, Irina-Camelia Begu, Astra Sharma and Eugenie Bouchard all head through to the second round while Camila Giorgi retired to compatriot Martina Trevisan and Venus Williams was knocked out of contention by Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.