Reigning champion Iga Swiatek on Friday celebrated her 23rd birthday by brushing aside Marie Bouzkova to reach the French Open last 16, while Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz both powered into the second week.
Alcaraz got the better of Sebastian Korda in straight sets to edge closer to a semi-final meeting with Sinner, who saw off Russian Pavel Kotov 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.
“Sebastian Korda is a great player and a really good ball striker,” Alcaraz said. “It is difficult to play against him. I had to run a lot. It was like a marathon for me today.”
Photo: AP
Sixth seed Andrey Rublev suffered a shock exit at the hands of unheralded Italian Matteo Arnaldi, losing his cool repeatedly as anger at his performance boiled over.
Swiatek had to save a match point to avoid an upset defeat by fellow four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka in a second-round thriller, but she was never in trouble during a 6-4, 6-2 win over Czech Bouzkova.
“I feel good physically, I had a day off yesterday,” Swiatek said. “I don’t feel like the match [against Osaka] stayed with me, but we’ll see at the end of the tournament.”
Photo: Reuters
The world No. 1 is a red-hot favorite to lift the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen for a third straight year and become only the fourth woman to win four Roland Garros titles in the Open era.
She was much closer to her best form on Friday, hitting 34 winners and making only 19 unforced errors.
Swiatek is to play Russia’s Anastasia Potapova in the next round today.
The Polish star’s win-loss record at the tournament stands at 32-2 and she has never failed to reach the second week.
Coco Gauff held off a late fightback from Australian Open semi-finalist Dayana Yastremska to win 6-2, 6-4 in the first match of the day on Court Philippe Chatrier.
The reigning US Open champion has an excellent record at Roland Garros, having previously reached two quarter-finals and the 2022 final, which she lost to Swiatek.
The 20-year-old failed to serve out the match when leading 5-2 in the second set, but saved three break points in the 10th game before getting over the line, making the fourth round for a fourth straight year.
“When it was time to close out and the games were getting close and tight, I was trying to just remind myself I’m in the better position,” Gauff said. “I’m the one up a set and double break, so I was just reminding myself of that.”
Gauff faces Elisabetta Cocciaretto for a last-eight berth after the unseeded Italian beat Russian 17th seed Liudmila Samsonova in straight sets.
Rublev became the biggest casualty in the men’s draw so far, as he fell to a surprise straight-sets defeat by Italian Matteo Arnaldi.
Rublev, who lifted the Madrid Open title last month, repeatedly smashed his racket in frustration as he made 37 unforced errors in an erratic display.
“Completely disappointed with myself the way I behaved, the way I performed,” the Russian said. “The problem is the head, that today basically I killed myself, and that’s it.”
Arnaldi faces former runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas in round four after the Greek downed China’s Zhang Zhizhen 6-3, 6-3, 6-1.
Wimbledon champion Alcaraz came through a potentially tough test against American 27th seed Korda 6-4, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 in the night session.
Two Taiwanese advanced in the first round of the women’s doubles. Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium defeated Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Shuko Aoyama of Japan 6-1, 7-6 (7/3), while Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova beat British pair Heather Watson and Katie Boulter 6-1, 3-6, 7-5.
However, Wu Fang-hsien and partner Zhu Lin of China were beaten 6-2, 6-2 by China’s Wang Yafan and Maia Lumsden of Britain.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Rangers on Wednesday bowed out of the UEFA Champions League playoffs with a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge which piles further pressure on head coach Russell Martin, while SL Benfica secured a place in the competition proper at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. The Glasgow giants traveled to Belgium right up against it after losing 3-1 at home in last week’s first leg, when they conceded three times in the opening 20 minutes. They never looked like turning the tie around as Club Brugge took the lead inside five minutes at the Jan Breydelstadion through Nicolo Tresoldi
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
Mitch Brown finally had enough as he watched unfolding coverage of yet another case of homophobic abuse in the Australian Football League (AFL), and decided it was time to change the narrative. Brown contacted the Daily Aus with a message that the online news site published yesterday: “I played in the AFL for 10 years for the West Coast Eagles, and I’m a bisexual man.” In almost 130 years of top-flight competition in Australia’s homegrown football code, no past or active male player had publicly identified as bisexual or gay. Aussie Rules was a long way behind other types of
RSS