PARIS—Court 1 at Roland Garros is called the Bullring because of its circular shape. By the midpoint of Alexander Zverev and Dusan Lajovic’s second-round match on Wednesday, the name also felt appropriate for what was happening inside the arena.
To the surprise of most, the bull on this occasion had turned out to be the second-seeded German, while the 60th-ranked Serb was playing the role of the matador. Lajovic was cutting, nicking, poking and slowly sinking Zverev, seemingly with his backhand alone.
Lajovic’s one-hander is one of the game’s most casually elegant shots. He can look as if he’s merely caressing the shot as he comes over it—until the ball leaves his strings and rockets through the court. To the exasperation of Zverev, Lajovic was doing a little bit of everything with the shot, all of it brilliantly.
He might win one point with a gently rolled backhand pass, the next with a delicately placed drop shot, the next with a bullet down the line. As the match passed the two-hour mark, a clean-clothed Lajovic led two sets to one, while Zverev, who had face-planted on the clay twice and nearly flown into the stands half a dozen times while trying to chase down a ball, was covered in red dirt.