Just two days ago, his age touched the mark of 39. His body has been plagued by one injury after another. For the past 8 months, instead of being on the court, he had to spend time in a rehabilitation center. Before the start of the French Open, he had played only a single warm-up match. Despite all of this, there hasn’t been a shred of impact on Novak Djokovic’s confidence in his game. Although stepping into a major tournament after a long hiatus is difficult, the Serbian star has full faith in himself. Keeping the goal of winning a career 25th Grand Slam ahead of him, he advanced today with a hard-fought victory.
He had to play four sets to secure a win against local wildcard player Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard. The unheralded Giovanni pushed Djokovic into a challenging position by claiming the first set. Djokovic managed to capture the second set somehow. Having regained his rhythm, however, Djokovic gave Giovanni no leverage in the third and fourth sets. He won the match 5–7, 7–5, 6–1, 6–4.
In the second round, Djokovic’s opponent will be another French talent, Valentin Royer. Meanwhile, in the women’s singles, second seed Elena Rybakina, third seed Iga Świątek, and thirteenth seed Jasmine Paolini have advanced with comfortable victories.
