Carlos Alcaraz reached the third round of Roland Garros in four sets on Wednesday. The defending champion defeated Hungarian Fábián Marozsán. Former finalist Casper Ruud was surprisingly eliminated.
Alcaraz got off to a good start and won the first set 6-1. In the second set, Marozsán (ATP-56) recovered by immediately breaking Alcaraz. The world number two could not make up for this deficit.
The 22-year-old Alcaraz seemed to wake up and then pulled the victory within an hour. He easily won the third set and converted his first match point after more than two hours of play: 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 and 6-2.
Alcaraz will face Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard or Damir Dzumhur in the next round. Last year, Alcaraz won Roland Garros for the first time by defeating Alexander Zverev in the final.
The second round meant the final stop for Ruud. The seventh-seeded Norwegian lost in four sets to Nuno Borges from Portugal: 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 and 6-0.
Ruud won the first set 6-2, but increasingly suffered from a leg injury. After losing the second set, Ruud only won one more game against the world number 41.
Ruud reached the final of the Grand Slam tournament in Paris twice. In 2022 he lost to Rafael Nadal. A year later, Novak Djokovic was too strong.