Twice Roland Garros champion Novak Djokovic breezed through the first two sets before encountering resistance from the 24-year-old American.

He ended the contest with a sizzling service return on his first match point and will now take on Hungarian journeyman Marton Fucsovics for a place in the third round.

“It’s always a pleasure to come back here, one of the best tournaments in the world,” said Djokovic, who made his Roland Garros debut in 2005.

“I’m very motivated to go far here, all the way I hope.”

However, he risked courting controversy by writing “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence” on a camera lens in Serbian as he departed.

Kosovo is our cradle, our stronghold, centre of the most important things for our country… There are many reasons why I wrote that on the camera.

About 25 Nato peacekeeping soldiers defending three town halls in northern Kosovo were injured in clashes with Serb protesters on Monday, while Serbia’s president put the army on the highest level of combat alert.

The incidents came a day after Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg called on Kosovo to tone down tensions with Serbia following clashes between Kosovan police and protesters who are opposed to Albanian mayors taking office in ethnic Serbian areas.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said 52 Serbs were injured on Monday, three of them seriously, while Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused her Serbian counterpart of destabilising Kosovo.

Serbia and its traditional ally Russia do not recognise Kosovo’s independence, and Moscow has blocked the country’s bid to become a member of the United Nations. Serbia still considers Kosovo part of its territory.

“Kosovo is our cradle, our stronghold, centre of the most important things for our country… There are many reasons why I wrote that on the camera,” RFI radio quoted the 36-year-old Djokovic as saying to Serbian media.

But it appears there will be no sanction for Djokovic.

“There are no official Grand Slam rules on what players can or cannot say. The FFT will not be making any statement or taking any stance on this matter,” the French Tennis Federation (FFT), which organises the event, told Reuters.

Sloane Stephens thrashed former world No 1 Karolina Pliskova 6-0 6-4 in her first-round match at Roland Garros. (Photo: Robert Prange / Getty Images)

Racism is rife

Sloane Stephens, runner-up in 2018, dismantled former world No 1 Karolina Pliskova 6-0 6-4. Although everything went smoothly on court for the American, she said racist abuse of players had got worse.

“Yes, it’s obviously been a problem my entire career,” said Stephens, who is black. “It has never stopped. If anything, it’s only gotten worse.”

She did not go into specific details but said even software such as the one available for players at the French Open, which is designed to block racist comments, could not stop it.

“I did hear about the software. I have not used it,” Stephens said.

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“I have a lot of obviously key words banned on Instagram and all of these things, but that doesn’t stop someone from just typing in an asterisk or typing it in a different way, which obviously software most of the time doesn’t catch.”

The software provided by organisers for the first time is able to identify and remove racist and other forms of hate speech, and the FFT has made it available to all players at the tournament.

Using artificial intelligence, the software filters out abusive comments on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Tennis players, including greats Serena and Venus Williams, have been the targets of such abuse, as have professional athletes in all sports, with Real Madrid soccer player Vinicius Jnr the most notable recent case.

He was on the receiving end of racist chants at Valencia’s Mestalla stadium last week and his complaints about Spain and LaLiga not doing enough to fight racism sparked a worldwide wave of support and a national debate in Spain.

Tottenham Hotspur were working this month with the Metropolitan Police to investigate an allegation of racial abuse towards South Korean striker Son Heung-min.

Stephens said the racism had reached a worrying level.

“I mean, obviously when there is FBI investigations going on with what people are saying to you online, it’s very serious,” she said.

She did not say whether she was referring to a specific case.

“Obviously it’s been something that I have dealt with my whole career. I think that, like I said, it’s only continued to get worse, and people online have the free rein to say and do whatever they want behind fake pages, which is obviously very troublesome.

“It’s something I have had to deal with my whole career and something I will continue to deal with, I’m sure. That’s that.”

Other results

World No 1 Carlos Alcaraz also came through with flying colours as the Spaniard crushed Italian qualifier Flavio Cobolli 6-0 6-2 7-5 in his first Grand Slam match since winning the US Open title in 2022.

Jannik Sinner closed out the night session with a dominant win as the eighth seed downed Frenchman Alexandre Muller 6-1 6-4 6-1 to book a clash with Daniel Altmaier.

Jannik Sinner celebrates victory over Alexandre Muller in the first round Match of the French Open on 29 May 2023. (Photo by Ian MacNicol / Getty Images)

Dominic Thiem took his main-draw spot after the withdrawal of 14-times champion Rafa Nadal – his conqueror in the 2018 and 2019 finals – but the injury-plagued Austrian fell to Argentinian Pedro Cachin 6-3 6-2 6-7(1) 4-6 6-2.

Italian veteran Fabio Fognini showed he is still a force to be reckoned with as he dismissed ailing 10th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4 6-4 6-3, making the Canadian the first top-10 player in the men’s draw to crash out.

Stan Wawrinka also made his way into the second round after the 2015 champion beat Albert Ramos-Vinolas 7-6(5) 6-4 6-7(2) 1-6 6-4 in an epic battle lasting more than four hours.

Zhang Zhizhen later became the first Chinese man in the Open Era to win a main-draw match at the French Open as Dusan Lajovic retired while down 6-1 4-1.

Two former runners-up made quite an impression in the women’s draw.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova celebrated her return to Roland Garros with a dominant win over Czech Linda Fruhvirtova after fearing for her career a year ago due to a knee problem.

The 31-year-old enjoyed her best run at a Grand Slam in the 2021 tournament when she reached the final, and skipped the 2022 edition as well as the second half of the season to nurse an injury.

Former world No 3 Elina Svitolina celebrated a winning return to Grand Slam tennis with a 6-2 6-2 victory over Italy’s Martina Trevisan following her one-year maternity break, and the Ukrainian quickly waded into a debate over the war in her country.

She said that since her return to the tennis tour in April the focus had not been on the suffering of Ukrainians following Russia’s invasion in 2022.

“What I found is… a lot of rubbish is happening around the situation where we have to focus on the main point of what is going on,” Svitolina said when asked what she had been hearing on the tour since her comeback. Reuters/DM