Boulter and Fearnley earn maiden French Open wins

Katie Boulter (left) is making her second main-draw appearance at the French Open and Jacob Fearnley his first

French Open 2025

Dates: 25 May-8 June Venue: Roland Garros

Coverage: Live radio commentaries across 5 Live Sport and BBC Sounds, plus live text commentaries on the BBC Sport website and app

Britain's Katie Boulter finally landed her first French Open main-draw victory at the age of 28 after Jacob Fearnley won on his debut against former champion Stan Wawrinka.

Boulter, ranked 38th in the world, overcame a tense start to win 6-7 (4-7) 6-1 6-1 against French world number 231 Carole Monnet.

"I'm really pleased with myself," said Boulter, who will play reigning Australian Open champion Madison Keys in the second round.

"I sometimes find it really difficult on this surface and I've kind of persevered and tried my hardest to bring some good tennis."

Also playing in front of a partisan opposition crowd, 55th-ranked Fearnley made smooth progress with a 7-6 (8-6) 6-3 6-2 victory over the popular 40-year-old Wawrinka.

The pair joined Emma Raducanu in the second round after she fought through "feeling sick" to beat China's Wang Xinyu earlier on Monday.

However, Jodie Burrage was unable to complete a British clean sweep on day two of the clay-court Grand Slam event.

The 25-year-old, playing under a protected injury ranking, lost 7-6 (7-1) 6-4 to American former world number seven Danielle Collins.

Boulter rewarded for clay-court perseverance

Learning how to play on the tricky clay surface has never come easy to Boulter.

Most British players have historically not grown up playing on the surface and Boulter - who became the nation's leading women's player almost two years ago - has never had a great deal of exposure on the red dirt.

As a result she struggled with the fluidity and trust in her movement - a necessary skill to thrive on clay.

Boulter only made her debut at Roland Garros last year, despite being seeded as a result of her ability on hard and grass courts.

To her great credit, she has continued to persist in her efforts to improve.

In the build-up to the Paris major, she dropped down to the second-tier of the WTA Tour and was rewarded with a maiden clay title in the French capital.

A first-round draw against Monnet - a 23-year-old wildcard ranked 193 places below her - could not have been a better opportunity to earn a Roland Garros win.

It was not all plain-sailing. But Boulter started to play more freely after a scrappy start and her greater quality was too much for her inexperienced opponent.

Afterwards, Boulter said she did not think her below-par start was down to feeling any pressure of landing that elusive French Open win.

"Obviously that does mean a fair bit to me," she added.

"But I think because I played so well last week and I started building a lot of momentum, ultimately I start putting more pressure on myself.

"I think that's where a bit of experience showed today, because I dug in in the biggest moments, especially in the start of both sets.

"That gave me a lot of confidence just to kind of keep going for my shots. It allowed me to close the door."

Fearnley keeps cool to silence crowd

Fearnley was only three years old when Switzerland's Wawrinka made his French Open debut in 2005, but had the benefit of youthful vitality - if not clay-court experience - over the three-time major winner.

Wawrinka beat Novak Djokovic to lift the trophy in Paris ten years ago but has since dropped to 138th in the world rankings.

Fearnley, meanwhile, had never played an ATP Tour match on clay before this year.

The 23-year-old from Edinburgh was ranked outside of the world's top 500 just 12 months ago but has risen rapidly up the rankings to a career-high of 55.

After clinching the opening set via a tie-break, Fearnley broke early in the second and raced out to a 4-1 lead before serving the set out to love.

Wawrinka, who knocked Andy Murray out in the first round last year, dropped serve immediately in the third set but fought back to move level at 2-2 - much to the delight of the crowd on court 14.

Their joy was short-lived as Fearnley quickly restored his lead and won four straight games to wrap up victory.

On overcoming the pro-Wawrinka crowd, Fearnley said: "There were a lot of guys talking to me. It was mostly in French. They could have been saying nice things, but I doubt it."

Fearnley has now won on his main draw debut at each of the three Grand Slams he has featured at so far - Wimbledon, the Australian Open and Roland Garros.

He will face French 22nd seed Ugo Humbert, who beat Australia's Christopher O'Connell, in the second round.