Swiatek opens Olympics with straight-sets win at site of her French Open triumphs

Iga Swiatek shook off a bit of a dip in the first round of the Paris Olympics tennis competition and grabbed the last four games to beat Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2, 7-5 on Saturday under a closed roof at Roland Garros, the site of the No. 1-ranked Polish player’s four French Open titles.

Swiatek, who won a third consecutive championship at Court Philippe Chatrier just seven weeks ago, got broken in that same stadium to trail 5-3 in the second set before getting back to her usual clay-court expertise. She wrapped up the victory by breaking at love when Begu double-faulted on the last point.

Day 1 of tennis began with showers that might have contributed to slow lines for umbrella-toting spectators at the facility’s security checks near entrances and postponed by hours the start of matches at the 10 courts without retractable roofs.

It’s a good thing the French tennis federation built a pair of covers recently: 15,000-capacity Chatrier added one in 2020, and the second-largest arena, 10,000-capacity Court Suzanne Lenglen, has one as of this year.

Italy’s Jasmine Paolini, who was the runner-up to Swiatek at the French Open in June and to Barbora Krejcikova at Wimbledon two weeks ago, was the first tennis player to win a match at these Summer Games, eliminating Romania’s Ana Bogdan 7-5, 6-3 at Lenglen.

Laval, Que., native Leylah Fernandez, the 16th seed, was scheduled to play Czech player Karolina Muchova, a 2023 French Open finalist, later on Saturday. Muchova, ranked 29th in the world, won their only previous encounter in 2022 on hard courts in Miami.

Bianca Andreescu, of Mississauga, Ont., was set to face Denmark’s Clara Tauson, ranked 63rd in the world, in her opening match also on Saturday.

Fernandez and Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski, a winner of 16 women’s doubles titles, was slated to play France’s Clara Burel and Varvara Gracheva on Saturday in the first round of the women’s doubles. The Canadians are the seeded fifth.

Other big names

Among the other big names from the sport scheduled to play later Saturday were reigning French Open and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz — facing Lebanon’s Hady Habib in singles in the afternoon and pairing with Spanish teammate Rafael Nadal in doubles at night — along with 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia and four-time major champion Naomi Osaka.

Nadal has won a record 14 of his 22 Slam titles at Roland Garros and owns Olympic gold medals in singles and doubles. He carried the torch and rode on a boat in the Seine River with retired tennis star Serena Williams during the drenched opening ceremony Friday night.

Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime, the 13th seed, was also set to start his campaign Saturday against American Marcos Giron, ranked 38th.

Coco Gauff, the female flag bearer for the United States on Friday, was slated to make her Olympic debut Saturday with Jessica Pegula in doubles. Gauff won the French Open doubles title with Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic last month and the U.S. Open singles trophy last September.

Three years ago, Gauff missed the Tokyo Games after testing positive for COVID-19 right before she was supposed to fly to Japan.