French Open: China’s Zheng Qinwen, world No 1 Sabalenka ease into second round

Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen eased past 2021 finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 6-3 in the French Open first round on Sunday to stretch her winning run on the Parisian clay to seven matches.

The Chinese player has fond memories of the Philippe Chatrier court having won the women’s singles gold medal on the same court at last year’s Paris Games.

Playing under a closed roof because of rain in the French capital on the first day of the tournament, Zheng broke the Russian in the second game to quickly go 3-0 up.

The eighth seed initially was stretching her opponent with well-placed serves but she stumbled in the sixth game when 33-year-old Pavlyuchenkova broke back and levelled at 4-4.

Zheng quickly recovered and bagged the first set, with a love game on her opponent’s serve.

The pair traded breaks midway through the second set before Pavlyuchenkova was broken again, despite being 40-15 up, when a seemingly simple smash sailed past the baseline and Zheng wrapped up the match on serve.