Seeded Canadians Mboko, Auger-Aliassime advance to French Open second round

PARIS — Victoria Mboko sailed and Félix Auger-Aliassime struggled. But in the end, both seeded Canadians moved on to the second round of the French Open.

Mboko had little trouble in her opening match of the women’s draw on Tuesday. She downed Czechia’s Nikola Bartunkova 6-1, 6-2 in just 69 minutes.

Auger-Aliassime, meanwhile, survived a five-set slugfest with Germany’s Daniel Altmaier that saw the fourth seed come back from 4-1 down in the final set en route to a 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7) victory.

Mboko, coming off an appearance in the final of the Strasbourg International tournament last week, converted her sixth break in 10 chances.

The 19-year-old from Burlington, Ont., faced just two break points, defending one.

Mboko, the ninth seed in the women’s draw, is making her second appearance at the clay-court Grand Slam after advancing to the third round in her debut last year.

Mboko will next face another Czech opponent in Katerina Siniakova. The 30-year-old veteran is No. 36 in the world in singles competition and is also part of the top-ranked doubles team at Roland Garros with American Taylor Townsend.

Auger-Aliassime, the men’s fourth seed, had nine aces on the deadening clay at Roland Garros but faced 13 break points, and failed to defend five of them.

The 25-year-old from Montreal had six breaks of his own, however, including a key conversion that cut Altmaier’s lead in the fifth set to 4-3.

Altmaier led the fifth set tiebreaker before Auger-Aliassime stormed back, winning the final two points of the match on return.

Auger-Aliassime will face Argentina’s Roman Andres Burruchaga in the second round.

Earlier, Denis Shapovalov was eliminated with a 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 loss to Portuguese qualifier Jaime Faria.

Faria scored a key break to go up 6-5 in the second set before serving for the win, to put Shapovalov on the brink of elimination.

The 22-year-old then went up 2-1 in the third set on an early break. Shapovalov fought back to win the next game on return, but another break restored Faria’s lead, and he served out from there.

The 27-year-old Shapovalov, from Richmond Hill, Ont., showed some power on the slow clay courts at Roland Garros with 10 aces, but he cost himself with eight double faults and 48 unforced errors.

Shapovalov, who entered the French Open ranked 39th in the world, saw his season record fall to 8-11.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 26, 2026.

The Canadian Press