Trophy-chasing French duo Harold Mayot and Arthur Cazaux hailed compatriots Hugo Gaston and Clara Burel as inspirational figures after navigating the opening round of the Roland Garros Junior Championships.

Mayot and Cazaux, who contested the Australian Open boys’ final earlier this year, arrived in Paris as the top two seeds and dispatched Brazil’s Bruno Oliveira and Jerome Kym of Switzerland respectively to reach round two.

Not long ago Burel and Gaston were competing at junior level and regularly reaching the latter stages of Junior Grand Slams. They both also medalled at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires – Gaston taking singles gold – and starred at the ITF Junior Finals in Chengdu, which Burel won.

Titles have followed in the professional ranks, while Gaston tops the Men’s ITF World Tennis Tour rankings. But it has been their showing in the main draw at this year’s Roland Garros which has seen their stock rise and a flurry of admiring glances from rising stars such as Mayot and Cazaux.

Gaston overcame three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka on his way to the round of 16 where he lost but took two sets off US Open champion Dominic Thiem, while Burel, the ITF Junior Girls World Champion in 2018, made it to the third round.

French proteges Mayot and Cazaux, who both received wild card entries to this year’s main draw but suffered defeats in the opening round, have designs on following suit.

“We have a beautiful generation of French players,” Cazaux, who will face Brazil’s Pedro Boscardin Dias in the second round, told itftennis.com.

“Hugo inspires me a lot when I see him on the TV. He has played unbelievably well and it is very inspiring. I want to do the same as he has done in the next couple of years.

“Clara did well also because she was injured last year. But she is back to a very good level and beating some very good players. She is very inspiring also. I want to work more to be that good and do what Hugo and Clara have done.”

Mayot overpowered Oliveira 6-1 6-1 and will now face Hamad Medjedovic of Serbia in the second round. He echoed Cazaux’s sentiments, telling itftennis.com: “Hugo is my very close friend and what he has done is amazing.

“He made history at Roland Garros and was very close to beating Thiem, and Clara did very well also. It is very good for French tennis and the French Tennis Federation. It is a dream to be able to do what Hugo has done.”

For Mayot, the Roland Garros Junior Championships offer an opportunity to seal back-to-back Junior Grand Slam titles. If he was to achieve that feat, he would become only the fourth boy to do so this century and the first since Tseng Chun Hsin of Chinese Taipei in 2018.

“If I was to do this, it would be fantastic,” he said. “It is always tough to win a tournament and especially a Junior Grand Slam, but I hope this will happen as it would be amazing. It would be very special for me to win in Paris but there is a long way to go.”

Cazaux has a different viewpoint. Having lost to Mayot in the final in Melbourne, he does not wish to taste defeat again with a major trophy so agonisingly within reach.

“It was tough because you always want to win a final,” added Cazaux, who negotiated a mammoth first-set tiebreak before beating Kym 7-6(12) 6-3.

“But I was happy to so well at the Australian Open and I lost against a friend. Harold played well and I was happy for him, but I was disappointed.

“I would be very, very happy if I was to go one step further here, but I am focused on the next round, happy to go match by match. I don’t want to think too much about a final.”

Elsewhere in the boys’ draw, it was certainly a day for those with designs on lifting silverware to shine. Eight players seeded within the top 10 were action, with seven progressing.

The only casualty was No. 10 seed Nicholas David Ionel of Romania, who bowed out at the hands of French wild card Sean Cuenin. Brazil's Natan Rodrigues, Luciano Darderi of Italy, Swiss duo Dominic Stricker and Leandro Riedi and Great Britain's Arthur Fery all progressed.

It was a similar story in the girls’ draw with No. 1 and No. 2 seeds Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva and Alexandra Eala, of Andorra and the Philippines respectively, signalling their intent with commanding first-round victories.

Jimenez Kasintseva, who is bidding to become the first girl to win consecutive Junior Grand Slams since current world No. 10 Belinda Bencic in 2014, defeated France wild card Shanice Roignot. Eala, meanwhile, overcame Natalia Szabanin of Hungary.

Russia’s Polina Kudermetova, Kamilla Bartone of Latvia and Belarussian Kristina Dmitruk also progressed, although No. 7 seed Maria Bondarenko succumbed to Tara Wurth of Croatia.

Kudermetova recovered from losing the first set against Belgium’s Sofia Costoulas to prevail 3-6 6-2 6-2 and set up a second-round meeting with Slovenia’s Ziva Falkner. The 17-year-old is yet to go beyond the last eight at a Junior Grand Slam but has ambitions to do so in Paris.

“It was a long time to be on court and I played badly in the first set and I needed to show more concentration during the second and third sets,” Kudermetova told itftennis.com.

“After the first set, I felt I played really well. I have reached the quarter-finals of Junior Grand Slams before but I feel I am playing better now and want to go further.”