{"id":170471,"date":"2026-05-27T20:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=170471"},"modified":"2026-05-28T15:50:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:50:06","slug":"novak-reaches-third-round-of-the-french-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-reaches-third-round-of-the-french-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak reaches third round of the French Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

With his second win at his record 82nd Grand Slam appearance, Novak secured a place in the third round of Roland Garros<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The best Serbian tennis player, and third seed in Paris, Novak Djokovic, defeated another French player in the second round – Valentin Royer, the world no.74 – in four sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-7 (7), 6-3 after a tough battle that lasted three hours and 44 minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Novak patiently built his advantage early in the match and waited until the sixth game to break his rival\u2019s resistance. At that moment, he took advantage of a drop in Royer\u2019s level, won the game without losing a point, and then confirmed the break with a solid service game. There were no major surprises until the end of the set, and the Serbian star stayed in control to win it 6-3.<\/p>\n

In the second set, Djokovic raised his level even more and completely took control of the contest. He broke serve at the very beginning and earned another break in the fifth game. With confident serving and steady baseline play, he comfortably closed the set 6-2.<\/p>\n

The third set brought the most drama. A series of breaks started in the fifth game, and both players managed to break each other\u2019s serve twice. Novak was the first to take the lead each time, but Royer immediately answered back in the following game. The set was eventually decided in a tie-break. Novak led 3:0 and even had a match point at 6:5, but he still lost 7:9.<\/p>\n

In the fourth set, after winning a long opening game, Novak took advantage of another dip in the Frenchman\u2019s game, made the key break in the fourth game, and held onto it until the end of the match.<\/p>\n

Match statistics: aces (10-10), double faults (9-4), winners (46-40), unforced errors (38-43), total points won (133-111).<\/p>\n

Joao Fonseca, the 28th seed from Brazil, stands in Novak’s way in the third round of the season’s second Grand Slam. <\/strong>Fonseca managed to bounce back from two sets down against Dino Prizmic (Croatia), reeling off three consecutive sets to pull off a major comeback and secure his spot in the next round.<\/p>\n

It will be the first head-to-head encounter between the Serb and the Brazilian, and it will take place on Friday about 15.30 CET.<\/p>\n

Photo: Profimedia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The best Serbian tennis player, and third seed in Paris, defeated Valentin Royer in four sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-7 (7), 6-3 after a tough second round battle that lasted three hours and 44 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":170463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012019,101011211,101010469,101012141,101013524,113],"class_list":["post-170471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-france","tag-french-open-en","tag-grand-slam-en-2","tag-paris","tag-roland-garros-2026-en","tag-second-round"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170480,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170471\/revisions\/170480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}