Serena Williams will continue her title defence when she meets Kristina Mladenovic in a third round showdown.
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After breezing through her first two matches here in less than one hour each, Williams faced her first big test of the tournament against French No.1 Mladenovic, who relishes playing on big stages in her country.
With Serena Williams about to start a second-set tiebreaker against Kristina Mladenovic, heavy rain has halted play in the French Open’s third round.
Williams’ older sister Venus is ahead 2-1, on serve, in her third-round match against France’s Alize Cornet while No. 11 David Ferrer is up two sets and a break against No. 21 Feliciano Lopez.
The American then drew on the wealth of experience that has earned her 70 titles to save a set point before finally sealing victory when Mladenovic belted a forehand wide. That’s really all I can do right now. I think she played well.
“It’s just really hard to accept that I’m not in the tournament any more”.
Serena will next face the surging No. 18 seed Elina Svitolina, who derailed a Williams meeting with former No. 1 and No. 14 seed Ana Ivanovic, who fell to Svitolina 6-4, 6-4.
Play was scheduled to resume at Roland Garros shortly after 16:30 BST.
Her doubles acumen made her alive to the possibilities of hurting Williams at close-quarters and time and again she chipped it short to look for passing opportunities on the next reply.
Everything seemed to be going to plan as Williams took the opening set despite some impressive play from her opponent who used the drop shot to great effect throughout. “I was making a lot of errors”. “I think it was working really well today, and I was happy that I could stay in such a high level against her, still having in my mind that I’m 0-7 down”. I managed to get back into match and then few disappointing errors always came in the wrong time. However, Williams didn’t give up and ended up taking the match in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6. “I felt like that was sort of throughout the match”.
Next for Venus, who turns 36 next month, is a matchup with No. 8 Timea Bacsinszky, who defeated Pauline Parmentier 6-4, 6-2.
Williams and Henin have had their run-ins over the years, most notably here in 2003 when the Belgian, trailing 4-2, 30-0 in the final set, raised her hand because she wasn’t ready.
Dominic Thiem has prevailed in the duel of rising tennis stars, downing teenager Alexander Zverev 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Seventh-seeded Tomas Berdych got a scare but was able to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 over the 25th seed and claycourt specialist Pablo Cuevas.
The 22-year-old will face Marcel Granollers next, not more illustrious Spaniard Rafael Nadal who rocked the tournament on Friday when he withdrew because of a left wrist injury.
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With Roger Federer crocked, twice women’s champion Maria Sharapova banned pending the outcome of an anti-doping hearing, Nadal and Tsonga forced out and bad weather ever-present, it has not been a vintage French Open to date.
