2021 ROLAND GARROSDAY 4 MEN’S NOTESWednesday 2 June2nd Round Bottom Half

Featured matches No. 2 Daniil Medvedev (RUS) v Tommy Paul (USA) No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) v Pedro Martinez (ESP) No. 6 Alexander Zverev (GER) v (Q) Roman Safiullin (RUS) No. 11 Roberto Bautista Agut (ESP) v (Q) Henri Laaksonen (SUI) No. 12 Pablo Carreno Busta (ESP) v (WC) Enzo Couacaud (FRA) No. 15 Casper Ruud (NOR) v Kamil Majchrzak (POL) No. 22 Cristian Garin (CHI) v (Q) Mackenzie McDonald (USA) No. 23 Karen Khachanov (RUS) v Kei Nishikori (JPN) No. 27 Fabio Fognini (ITA) v Marton Fucsovics (HUN) No. 31 John Isner (USA) v Filip Krajinovic (SRB) On court today… • Daniil Medvedev returns to action this evening after winning his first Roland Garros match on the 5th attempt on Monday, with the No. 2 seed facing Tommy Paul in the night session on Court Philippe-Chatrier. The Russian had reached the final at 2 different Grand Slam tournaments before he managed to win a match at Roland Garros, but he looked comfortable in victory over Alexander Bublik in the 1st round. But former Roland Garros boys’ singles champion Paul is in good form, having enjoyed a run to the semifinals at Parma last week, and he will be determined to record his first victory against a Top 5 player and score upset the world No. 2 tonight. • No. 6 seed Alexander Zverev battled back from 0-2 down to defeat qualifier Oscar Otte in the 1st round on Sunday, maintaining his unbeaten record against qualifiers at the majors – and his 2nd round match on Court SuzanneLenglen today sees him take on another qualifier, world No. 182 Roman Safiullin. Zverev and Safiullin have never contested a Tour-level match – but they met 3 times as juniors within the space of a month during the 2013 clay court season. Zverev won all 3 of their junior-level matches in straight sets, including a victory in the boys’ singles here, and will hope for further success against the Russian today. • World No. 177 Enzo Couacaud is the only Frenchman in action today. He faces a challenging encounter against experienced campaigner Pablo Carreno Busta on Court Simonne-Mathieu today. Couacaud recorded his first Tour-level victory in the 1st round on Sunday, but will have to play a superb match if he is to defeat Carreno Busta. The Spaniard reached the quarterfinals here for the 2nd time last year and has continued his good form into 2021, winning his 5th Tour-level singles title on clay at Marbella in April. Carreno Busta is also bidding to extend an 11- match winning streak against wild cards at Tour-level. • The 2nd match on Court 7 today sees Casper Ruud, of Norway, up against Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak, with No. 15 seed Ruud aiming to reach the 3rd round for the 3rd straight year and equal his best Roland Garros performance. Both Ruud and Majchrzak are beneficiaries of the Grand Slam Development Fund’s International Player Grand Slam Grant programme, which aims to support players from developing tennis nations, enabling them to compete at the highest level. Ruud is now firmly among the sport’s elite players, having broken the world’s Top 20 earlier this year, while Majchrzak, who is aiming to become the first Polish man to reach the 3rd round here in 7 years, is edging closer to a return to the world’s Top 100 after struggling with injury in 2020.