Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan and John Peers of Australia crashed out of the first round of the mixed doubles at the French Open yesterday, while two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova’s comeback was cut short when she was dumped out of the second round of the women’s singles by Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
Top seeds Chan and Peers fell to a 6-4, 6-2 defeat to Abigail Spears of the US and Juan Sebastian Cabal of Colombia in just 58 minutes on Court 4 at Roland Garros in Paris.
Spears and Cabal saved three of four break points and converted four of seven to stun the pre-tournament favorites.
Photo: Reuters
In the second round of the women’s singles, 15th seed Kvitova, who had only returned this week after a five-month injury absence following a stabbing by a burglar last year, littered the court with errors to lose 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5).
The 32-year-old Mattek-Sands, a women’s doubles winner in Paris in 2015, refused to buckle when Kvitova went 4-2 ahead.
She whipped in a series of ferocious forehand winners, while also frustrating the Czech, constantly forcing her to the net to win the first set in a tiebreak.
Kvitova, who had struggled with her returns, despite the American getting less than half of her first serves in, pulled herself together and rallied from 3-1 down to force another tiebreak in the second set, but Mattek-Sands kept her cool and watched as Kvitova surrendered on match point with her ninth double fault.
With superstar sister Serena pregnant, it was left to 36-year-old Venus to carry the standard for the Williams family with a second-round thumping of Japan’s Kurumi Nara.
Seeded 10th, Venus ground her Japanese opponent into the red Parisian dust in a contest that at times almost veered into mismatch territory before ending 6-3, 6-1.
Venus never appeared extended, but she nevertheless delivered a display of exquisite shot-making to fans denied a real contest.
Punching her black and lime-green racket through the ball, Williams cleaned the lines with her ground strokes, sending Nara scampering all round the arena.
“You know, it’s always a joy when you can control the match,” Venus said. “That always feels good.”
In the first round of the men’s singles, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s hopes vanished into thin air when he was sent packing in a 7-5, 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 6-4 defeat by Argentine Renzo Olivo.
The French 12th seed, who had just won the Lyon Open on clay, bowed out after saving three match points yesterday after the match was interrupted by dusk on Tuesday.
“We were back to the hotel around 1am, I had a massage, it was not easy to sleep. I knew the first point today was important,” said world No. 91 Olivo, who trained in France from 2012 to last year.
Olivo served for the match yesterday, but a burly Tsonga had broken back to keep his hopes alive.
“I just tried to play every point as if it was the last,” said Olivo, who handed Tsonga his second first-round defeat at Roland Garros.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Samantha Stosur branded compatriot Margaret Court “crazy” after the Grand Slam legend claimed “tennis is full of lesbians” and transgender children were the work of “the devil.”
Stosur said all players were united in their condemnation of the 74-year-old as pressure mounted for the Margaret Court Arena at the Australian Open in Melbourne to be renamed.
“I think that’s all pretty crazy stuff,” Stosur said. “It’s pretty obvious that the whole tennis community out here has pretty much the same opinion and we’re going to all stand by that.”
However, Stosur said she was not leading calls for a boycott of the flagship arena in Melbourne which carries the name of the 24-time Grand Slam title winner.
Stosur’s fellow Australian Casey Dellacqua hit out at Court for her “hurtful” views on same-sex relationships.
The 32-year-old, who has two children with partner Amanda Judd, said Court was wrong to claim that her children “have been deprived of a father” and that such youngsters are not “given the best possible start in life.”
“Everyone is allowed their opinion, but when you start singling out my family especially, that’s when it’s not OK, and my family do not deserve to be subject to that,” Dellacqua said. “She can have her opinion, but my family does not deserve that. That’s when I thought, it’s my time to speak up.”
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