Paris (AFP)

There will be only one French player in the third round of Roland Garros and it is not the one we expected: the last survivor of the eighteen male entries is Hugo Gaston, just twenty years old, 239th in the world and who is only playing his second Grand Slam.

With only one representative at this early stage Porte d'Auteuil, French men's tennis has had its worst record in ten years.

The day began with the forfeit of Serena Williams: the American, who is desperately chasing a 24th major title to equal Margaret Court's record, is still feeling her left Achilles tendon affected at the US Open.

"It's an injury you don't want to play with, because it's not good if it gets worse," she explained.

No bad surprise, however, among the contenders for the title: Rafael Nadal like Dominic Thiem continued their journey without wasting time.

The first by leaving only four games (6-1, 6-0, 6-3) to the American Mackenzie McDonald (236th), the second by avoiding a fourth set thanks to three set points spread against another American, Jack Sock 6-1, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6).

World No. 2 Simona Halep, victorious over her Romanian compatriot Irina-Camelia Begu 6-3, 6-4, did not lag either.

- Pair has "delayed the deadline" -

Very smart the one who could have imagined on the starting line that the young Hugo Gaston would be the ultimate French representative in the male table.

Even he is surprised to reach this level of the tournament: "I did not expect it, necessarily", he admits before tackling the 2015 winner Stan Wawrinka.

Because three days ago, Gaston had not yet won any Grand Slam match.

His only experience, at the Australian Open last January, ended in an entry setback.

On Parisian clay, he successively got rid of his compatriot Maxime Janvier (7-6 (7-5), 6-4, 6-3) on Monday, then the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka, ranked at the gates of the top 50, in four sets (6-4, 7-6, 3-6, 6-2) Wednesday.

"I don't have the size to make three aces per game, so I have to find other solutions," he explains from the height of his modest 1.73 m.

As for the attitude, "I am inspired by Nadal", confides the Toulousain.

Ranking requires, we legitimately expected more at the meeting Gaël Monfils or Benoît Paire, the only two French seeded, even if both did not land in full possession of their means.

But for Monfils (N.9), disoriented since the post-Covid-19 recovery, Roland-Garros was cut short from the start, with a match to forget against the Kazakh Alexander Bublik.

For Pair, it ended this Wednesday, against the Argentinian Federico Coria, 99th in the world and little brother of Guillermo (7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 6-3, 6-1).

"I postponed the deadline but I'm tired. Nobody can realize what we went through (confined to the US Open, note). I didn't expect to work miracles", reacted Pair.

- Herbert shoved Zverev -

His elimination comes after an eventful month, between exclusion from the US Open and being kept in solitary confinement after having tested positive for Covid-19 at the end of August, then defeat on entry to Rome and abandonment in Hamburg the last two weeks.

Pair had as a bonus tested positive again in Germany.

Like Monfils, Richard Gasquet and Gilles Simon were stopped in the first round.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Lucas Pouille were absent from this fall 2020 edition.

The one who came close to catching up with Gaston on the third lap was Pierre-Hugues Herbert.

But Alexander Zverev ended up overcoming it after almost four hours of fighting.

Author of an excellent match, Herbert, very offensive and mounted more than 90 times at the net, with two thirds of success, made the recent finalist of the US Open dizzy, to lead 6-2, 4-1 .

Then Zverev returned to the game and the two players came out in the fifth set.

Led 3-0, then 5-3, the Alsatian has, each time, made up for his late break.

But the German grabbed his serve one last time to conclude with a winning lob.

In the women's table, Caroline Garcia (45th) showed the way: she rallied the third round by controlling Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich (92nd) 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 despite a painful left knee.

The last three French women in the running, Fiona Ferro, Alizé Cornet and the young Clara Burel, will try to imitate her on Thursday.

© 2020 AFP