Gaël Monfils emerged victorious over Adrian Mannarino on Monday in the Franco-French clash of the first round of Wimbledon, where Ugo Humbert battled against the Kazakh Alexander Shevchenko, while in the women’s draw Varvara Gracheva was the first to qualify for the second round.
Arthur Cazaux won his first match at Wimbledon.
A total of twenty French players were entered in the main draw (14 men and 6 women): six out of twelve went through on Monday.
. It goes (6): Gracheva, Burel, Monfils, Müller, Humbert, Cazaux
Gaël Monfils (33rd in the world) took almost three hours to beat Adrian Mannarino (24th) 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, 6-4.
In the next round, the 37-year-old Parisian, who has not played at Wimbledon since his elimination in the second round in 2021, will face the tournament’s oldest player, the Swiss Stan Wawrinka (95th), 39 years old.
Mannarino saved four match points on his serve at 5-3 before Monfils served for the match at 5-4 and prevailed in the confusion: his first serve, which Mannarino returned from the frame into the net, was called a fault, but the chair umpire corrected the call and awarded the match to Monfils. Mannarino then called for the video challenge which confirmed that the serve was indeed on the line and that Monfils had won the game.
Another French-French duel was played out between Alexandre Müller (102nd) and Hugo Gaston (71st): it turned to the advantage of the first 6-4, 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/5).
Müller will face world No. 5 and defending semi-finalist Daniil Medvedev.
At the start of the evening, Ugo Humbert (16th) finally overcame the Kazakh Alexander Shevchenko (57th) 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-7 (3/7), 6-1 in 3h18. The Frenchman benefited from a clear physical decline of his opponent in the deciding set.
The most heroic match was delivered by Arthur Cazaux (98th) who won his very first match at Wimbledon by overcoming the Belgian Zizou Bergs (82nd and from the qualifiers) 6-1, 6-4, 6-7 (2/7), 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (10/8).
The 21-year-old Frenchman served under enormous pressure as he trailed 6-5 in the deciding set and needed five game points to push the match into a super tie-break.
He then quickly pulled away 7-0, but Bergs came back to 8-8.
It was then Cazaux who had the first match point of the game, which he converted with a winning serve, 4 hours and 34 minutes after the first serve.
In the next round he will face the eccentric Kazakh Alexander Bublik (23rd).
Varvara Gracheva (70th) clearly dominated the Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko (59th) 6-3, 6-1.
The new Frenchwoman of Russian origin was eliminated last year in the second round (her best result to date on the London grass). This year, she will face another Ukrainian, Dayana Yastremska (27th) to try to reach the third round.
Also qualified, Clara Burel (45th) who calmly beat the German Eva Lys (129th), from the qualifications, 6-2, 6-4. She will face the British Sonay Kartal (298th).
. In the box (6): Mannarino, Janvier, Gaston, van Assche, Parry, Jacquemot
In addition to Mannarino and Gaston, victims of French-French duels, Maxime Janvier (225th), Luca van Assche (104th), Diane Parry (53rd) and Elsa Jacquemot (151st) were unable to seize their chance.
Janvier, who had made a lot of noise by snatching his qualification for the main draw, saw his path blocked by the Chinese Zhizhen Zhang (38th) winner 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 6-2.
Van Assche failed to take advantage of his qualifying repechage and fell to the Italian Fabio Fognini (94th) 6-1, 6-3, 7-5.
Parry looked set to bring down No. 113 Naomi Osaka when she led 3-1 in the deciding set before eventually losing 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.
As for Jacquemot, recalled at the last minute due to the last-minute withdrawal of Victoria Azarenka, she was unable to disturb the American Sloane Stephens (50th) who won 6-3, 6-3.
