Luca Van che did not do things by halves. For his first appearance in the main draw at Roland-Garros on Monday, the winner of the 2021 edition among juniors, 19, made short work of the Italian Marco Cecchinato, semi-finalist on clay beaten in Paris in 2018, in 1h58 of play (6-1, 6-1, 6-3).
The Parisian has got into the habit of doing everything quickly and, for the moment, doing everything well. Entering the top 100 in April at the age of 18, the current 82nd player in the world, who has just celebrated his 19th birthday at the beginning of the month, attacked his first round foot to the floor, succeeding in each of his risk takings in an insolent success . All while making Cecchinato dizzy, who must have found the short number 14 surprisingly large to have seen all four corners of it for nearly two hours.
Imperial on his face-offs, both behind his first ball (71% of points won) and his second (78%), he had no trouble saving the four break points he had to defend. Without ever giving the impression of overplaying and well helped by the impressive clumsiness of the Italian (53 unforced errors), Van che controlled his end of the match like an old veteran, taking advantage of the crazy atmosphere of court number 14 to leave explode his joy on the third match point.