Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei’s surprise French Open run ended in the third round yesterday after a dramatic 6-4, 4-6, 9-7 defeat to French 28th seed Caroline Garcia.
Hsieh, looking to reach the last-16 of a Grand Slam for just the second time, led 3-1 in the final set before Garcia reeled off four games on the trot.
The Frenchwoman failed to close it out initially, with Hsieh serving for the match at 6-5.
Photo: EPA
The world No. 109 faltered as well though, allowing Garcia to eventually prevail after 2 hours, 39 minutes.
The 23-year-old faces unseeded compatriot Alize Cornet for a place in the quarter-finals, guaranteeing France a player in the last-eight of the women’s draw for the first time since 2011.
Venus Williams had an easier time, cruising to a 6-3, 6-1 round-of-32·victory over Elise Mertens of Belgium.
In the men’s draw on Friday, Novak Djokovic had an all-around difficult day, from a disagreement with the chair umpire to the big deficit he created and then needed to overcome in steady rain.
Diego Schwartzman not only took the second game of his match against Djokovic, he grabbed the opening set, too, and then the third to go up 2-1.
Schwartzman played well during that stretch, but the No. 2-seeded Djokovic’s biggest problem was himself.
He wound up with 55 unforced errors to 43 winners and all sorts of issues on his backhand wing, which produced 33 of those miscues, all under the watchful eye of new coach Andre Agassi.
Djokovic, who completed a career Grand Slam a year ago in Paris, eventually figured out how to steady his game, if not his demeanor.
As Schwartzman became less proficient and complained about issues in his right-hip area — a trainer came out and gave him a massage during a changeover late in the final set — Djokovic became more assertive and more accurate.
Still, there were distractions. In the fourth set, with Djokovic leading 4-0 and serving at 30-all, he was given a fault by chair umpire Carlos Ramos for multiple time violations.
After the ensuing point, Djokovic stared in Ramos’ direction.
Moments later, just about to face a break point, Djokovic yelled at himself, mostly in Serbian.
Then, facing Ramos, Djokovic briefly lifted his racket overhead, before using it to flip a ball backward toward a ball boy.
That was when Ramos interrupted, announcing a code violation warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Djokovic walked over and barked: “What’s wrong with you? What did I say? What did I say? What did I say? Why did you give me warning? What, do you understand Serbian?”
Ramos had trouble getting a word in edgewise, but he responded: “Because of what you did. The gesture you made with the racket. This is not acceptable.”
“Did I hit the ball in your direction?” Djokovic said.
Ramos said: “No, you did not,” before warning the player over his attitude.
When play resumed, Djokovic missed a forehand to drop that game, but won eight of nine games the rest of the way.
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