No. 6 seed Daniil Medvedev lost in the first round of the French Open for the seventh time in 10 appearances at Roland Garros, dropping a five-set match in the first round to Australian wild card Adam Walton, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4, on Tuesday on Suzanne-Lenglen Court.
Medvedev melted down in the heat, took a verbal lashing for his on-court behavior from his wife seated courtside but still had a chance to put away Walton, the 97th-ranked men’s singles player who was 4-9 this season entering his first clay-court match of the year.
Walton, who played in the second round at the French Open in 2025, trailed 4-2 in the fifth and appeared to be more ragged than his opponent in the match that lasted three hours and 22 minutes.
He required a medical break after the second set to take a salt tablet as neither player found much consistency until the decider.
And it was Walton who gained his second wind. He took the next four games to oust Medvedev and beat him for the second time in their three career matches. Medvedev dropped to 0-4 in five-set matches in the French Open, 10-10 in his career.
“Pretty tired now. It was an up and down match. I felt like the ebbs and flows of the match were quite large today,” Walton said post-match in an on-court interview. “Just really proud of my efforts in the fifth set to come from a break down to get the win. It’s huge. Beating him in Cincinnati (in 2025) definitely gave me the belief today. I knew I could do it. I believed. Just really happy with performance. Just really excited right now.”
Catapulted by his first win over a top-10 opponent, Walton will oppose American Zachary Svajda in the second round.
In other Tuesday evening action, Frenchman Moise Kouame became the youngest winner at Roland Garros since 1991. The 17-year-old downed U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic in his grand slam tournament debut, 7-6, 6-2, 6-1.
Cilic was 20 and a top-20 ranked men’s player the day Kouame was born.
With vocal support from the home crowd, Kouame played well above his current ranking of No. 313 in the world with poise and precision to keep the 37-year-old Cilic, playing in the French Open main draw for the 18th time, off-balance.
Kouame was a winner on Court Simonne-Mathieu and advances to take on Paragauy’s Adolfo Daniel Vallejo. Britain’s Cameron Norrie, who has been nursing a rib injury, retired from their first-round match at the French Open while trailing in the second set, 0-2. He lost the first set on a tiebreak.
–Field Level Media
