Tallon Griekspoor reached the second round at Roland Garros on Monday. After a mediocre start, the best Dutch tennis player fought his way to a victory over Marcos Giron in four sets: 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, and 5-7.
The 28-year-old Griekspoor had a mediocre start on court 8, which was packed with Dutch tennis fans around 7:00 PM. He immediately surrendered his first service game to his American opponent.
Under the watchful eye of Amsterdam NBA rookie Quinten Post, Griekspoor had to concede the first set to the two-year-older Giron. After that, the Dutchman started serving better and better and took the initiative.
After 2 hours and 47 minutes, Griekspoor converted his first match point, sending Giron home. Giron is number 43 in the world, only eight places lower than Griekspoor in the world rankings.
In the second round, Griekspoor will face Canadian Gabriel Diallo, who surprisingly won against Argentine gravel specialist Francisco Cerundolo earlier in the day. He did so convincingly: 3-0 in sets.
Griekspoor recently broke with coach
In the run-up to Roland Garros, the talk was mainly about Griekspoor’s split with his coach Dennis Sporrel. The two parted ways after the Masters tournament in Rome at the beginning of this month. Griekspoor and Sporrel only worked together for three months.
In the period before that, Griekspoor also had an unsuccessful collaboration with Xavier Malisse, who was sent away after a trial period of ten days. Before that, the Dutch tennis player worked with Belgian coach Kristof Vliegen for two years.
Now Griekspoor is doing it alone for a while, with only his physiotherapist Sebastian Pisano at his side. His brother Scott is his occasional coach in Paris.
Griekspoor achieved his best performance ever at Roland Garros last year by reaching the third round. He lost to Alexander Zverev in that round. His second round match against Diallo is on Thursday.
Sinner to second round without losing a set
Jannik Sinner has had a good start to Roland Garros. The number one in the world was, as expected, too strong for Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech in the first round: 6-4, 6-3 and 7-5. Sinner will face 38-year-old Frenchman Richard Gasquet in the second round.