Jabeur, Thiem crash out of French Open

PARIS, May 22 (AFP): Arab trailblazer Ons Jabeur crashed out of the French Open at the first hurdle on Sunday as Spanish teenage sensation Carlos Alcaraz prepared to give Roland Garros a glimpse of the future of Grand Slam tennis.
Sixth seed Jabeur, seen as a potential champion, despite never having previously got past the fourth round, lost 3-6, 7-6 (7/4), 7-5 to Poland's 56th-ranked Magda Linette.
Jabeur came into the event with a season-leading 17 wins on clay in 2022 and with the prestigious Madrid title under her belt.
However, she was undone Sunday by 24 unforced errors in the two hour 28-minute match.
Linette had lost to Jabeur in the third round in 2021 having stunned an injury-hit top seed Ashleigh Barty in her previous match.
Two-time runner-up Dominic Thiem, whose ranking has slipped to 194 after a lengthy battle with a wrist injury, was another early casualty, losing 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to 87th-ranked Hugo Dellien of Bolivia.
Thiem, the 2020 US Open champion, has yet to win a match in six attempts since his return in March. He has now lost 10 tour-level matches in a row. His last victory came in Rome just over a year ago. The 28-year-old Austrian, a former world number three, reached at least the quarter-finals at Roland Garros five years running from 2016 to 2020.
He finished runner-up to Rafael Nadal in 2018 and 2019.
Alcaraz, 19, bidding to become just the eighth teenager to capture a major men's title, is widely tipped to end the dominance of 13-time champion Rafael Nadal and two-time winner Novak Djokovic.
He is the tour's dominant player in 2022, winning a season-leading 28 matches with just three losses.