Demon off to strong start as he looks to rewrite his Roland-Garros history

This is where it gets interesting for Alex de Minaur.

Australia’s top-10 torchbearer extended his streak of not losing in the first round at a grand slam to 16 tournaments with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 dismantling of British qualifier Toby Samuel at Roland-Garros on Monday night (AEST) to book his first serious test in what he hopes is a lengthy stay.

Up next is one of the tour’s rising stars, 21-year-old Belgian Alexander Blockx, a powerful former junior world No.1 enjoying his breakout season at the top level.

Blockx, who breezed through his first-round match in straight sets on Sunday night, barely missed a seeding for the claycourt major after a semi-final run at the Madrid Masters and presents a sizeable threat to de Minaur.

It was 12 months ago that de Minaur reached this same stage in the French capital, only to shockingly blow a two-set lead to Kazakh Alexander Bublik before revealing his battle with burnout.

That remains the 27-year-old’s worst grand slam result since losing in the second round at Wimbledon to Matteo Berrettini three years ago.

De Minaur has since become one of the tour’s most consistently excellent performers, including reaching one of his seven major quarter-finals at Roland-Garros in 2024. But this has been his least successful slam, having lost in the second round or earlier at eight of his nine trips.

What it does mean is the world No.9 has an opportunity to make up some points on his rivals, and potentially end this fortnight with a career-high ranking in the top five if things go well.

De Minaur doesn’t operate with the same wicked topspin as some of his peers, which is part of his challenge on the red dirt, but has developed a more-than-handy drop shot that was on high rotation against Samuel.

But their match-up was a soft opener for the “Demon”, who was the first player to advance on day two in eight minutes short of two hours on a warm Paris day that peaked beyond 30 degrees.

The 159th-ranked Brit had never faced a top-100 opponent, let alone one with a single-digit ranking, before walking onto court 14 against de Minaur, who returned to form with a semi-final run in Hamburg last week after accepting a late wildcard.

He had lost three consecutive matches on clay before his Hamburg effort, and seven of 11 overall since winning the Rotterdam title over Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime in February.

De Minaur wasn’t perfect against Samuel, and had to dig himself out of an 0-2 hole in the second set, but he grabbed that break back instantly and was otherwise largely untroubled as he cruised into the second round.

Samuel surprised de Minaur with some big strikes early in the contest and finished his work at the net as they traded service holds through the first four games.

But as the No.8 seed settled in and found his range, Samuel found it increasingly difficult to hang in the rallies. He tugged a backhand wide on a rash attempt at a winner to drop serve in the fifth game – and that was all de Minaur needed to eventually clinch a one-set edge.

Samuel quickly found himself a break point down in set two, only to wriggle clear and then capitalise on an uncharacteristically loose de Minaur service game to break the Australian for the only time in the match.

Back-to-back forehand errors put de Minaur in trouble, then Samuel ripped a huge return that did not come back. Any chance of a mid-match twist soon evaporated as de Minaur produced a sharp return game, capped with a whipped forehand that landed near Samuel’s feet in the service box to secure the break back.

It was the type of point that illustrated the difference between the pair.

De Minaur’s controlled aggression, mixed with the type of rock-of-Gibraltar defence that his rival would not see often on the Challenger circuit, proved too much for the inexperienced Samuel, who often looked like he had to play beyond his means to try to win points.

Another break in the seventh game was the beginning of the end for Samuel, who showed enough to suggest he might be knocking on the door of the top 100 soon.

But for de Minaur, this was little more than a tune-up as he struck 27 winners to Samuel’s 19, while committing 17 fewer unforced errors. He has few positive memories on Roland-Garros’ clay courts, so will be keen to add more when he continues his campaign against Blockx.

The Australians have made a solid start, with James Duckworth winning on Sunday night before Daria Kasatkina joined him and de Minaur in the next round with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Zeynep Sonmez.

Unlike de Minaur, Roland-Garros has been a happy hunting ground for Kasatkina, including making the semi-finals in 2022 and at least the fourth round on three other occasions. However, four-time champion Iga Swiatek eliminated Gold Coast teenager Emerson Jones 6-1, 6-2 in an hour.

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