Serena Williams managed to come through a frustrating third-round clash at the French Open to beat Kristina Mladenovic in straight sets on Saturday.
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1 faced off against No. 26 seed Kristina Mladenovic of France.
If he wins that, it will be the first time that 22-year-old Thiem has reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam and Tsonga’s exit will further improve his chances.
The 21-year-old Svitolina, who had won just one match on clay this season before starting her campaign in Paris, said she played with a “better mentality” than during her previous matches against the Serb. Unlike Williams, the Frenchwoman didn’t struggle to hold.
Williams, unable to blast her opponent off the court, grew more frustrated by the minute.
On Monday at the French Open, Serena Williams will face an old foe, but with one caveat: Her one-time nemesis will be in her opponent’s corner, not across the net from her. Williams had an easy service game to be up 3-2.
When they returned, the drama just piled up, Williams making a frightful mess of a smash on match point, and Mladenovic got back to 9-9.
“It was tough, but it’s part of the game”. On serve, the American looked her dominant self. Nevertheless, Mladenovic hit a double fault to give Williams another match point.
But Williams turned up the heat when it counted. She, however, nearly lost the advantage when she was broken back in the second set to 4-4.
Mladenovic, distracted by the impending weather, the crowd, and something in her eye, fell behind 0-40.
Williams, the No. 1 seed, is trying to become the first woman to win consecutive titles at Roland Garros since Henin took three in a row from 2005-07. Rain started to fall just as the world No 30 prepared to serve to stay in the match at 4-5.
“There are many things”, he said of his own progression.
With the pressure back on her, and with rain now steadily falling, Mladenovic answered the challenge agin. “It’s not me. Those break points, a lot of them I should have won and I didn’t”. The defending champion also had another problem to counter – a two and half hour rain delay.
Svitolina, 21 and the victor of the girls’ title in Paris in 2010, is 0-3 against Williams. Mladenovic would eventually hold a 5-2 lead.
Williams’ serve was in charge to save her again from the break. Mladenovic’s sneaky drop shots caught Williams wrong-footed on more than one occasion, and made for some spectacular rallies during the course of the contest. In the victory, Serena won 72 percent of her first serve points and 58 percent of her second serve points.
The stats reveal just how evenly matched Mladenovic and Williams were throughout the match: both players hit three aces and struck 27 winners, though Williams hit 31 unforced errors to Mladenovic’s 35. But Williams swatted that away with another smash victor.
However, unlike the first set, Williams had yet to face a break point.
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After a lengthy delay due to a thunderstorm, Williams had to stave off a set point that would have forced a decider before converting match point at the fifth attempt. A loud “Allez” was heard from Mladenovic after she hit a forehand victor to save the break point. Four times, Williams was a point from victory in the tiebreaker – at 6-5, 7-6, 8-7 and 10-9 – and couldn’t close it out.
