Stanislas Wawrinka remains on course to retain the French Open title after beating Taro Daniel in three sets to reach the third round of the Grand Slam. At least I get a day’s rest now.
Advertisement
He lost 6-2 2-6 4-6 6-2 6-3 as he eventually ran out of gas.
Venus Williams avoided a second consecutive first-round Grand Slam loss – and a second consecutive first-round French Open loss.
Garcia cheered herself up and encouraged the crowd to support her after breaking back in the seventh game of the second set.
This was supposed to be the French Open at which the 29-year-old challenged for the title having gone into it as the form player on clay.
The French Open’s Twitter feed posted a video of the crowd at Court Suzanne Lenglen giving 2010 title victor and 2011 runner-up Francesca Schiavone a standing ovation after her 6-2, 6-4 first-round loss to 26th-seeded Kristina Mladenovic.
Novak Djokovic, who ended Nadal’s 39-match winning streak at Roland Garros a year ago in the quarterfinals, joined the Spaniard in the third round.
Most of the other top seeds in action Wednesday won in straight sets, including defending champion Stan Wawrinka, No. 5 Kei Nishikori, No. 8 Milos Raonic and the last two American men, No. 15 John Isner and No. 23 Jack Sock.
The ninth-seeded American needed almost 2 hours to get past 82nd-ranked Anett Kontaveit of Estonia 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) on Court 1 at Roland Garros on Tuesday.
Twice a grand slam champion, Wawrinka needed five sets to scrape past Lukas Rosol in the opening round and found himself in trouble in the first set against Daniel when he trailed 4-6 in the tiebreaker.
The man with the most wins at majors is Roger Federer, who has 302 over his career but is missing from this year’s French Open because of injury. This is the time of the year when the world’s best tennis players descend on Paris to compete for the coveted French Open crown. I’m just very happy to be in the third round. When you don’t play your best tennis, you play against someone who is playing really good, and at the end you get the win it’s really important.
“I was struggling a little bit”. The Argentine left-hander saved a match point in the eighth game and managed to break his rival, only to drop his next service game and the match.
First on Court Philippe Chatrier is Angelique Kerber, the third-seeded Australian Open champion.
“At that point the overall game level was very high”.
The Williams sisters were on their way to a 6-2, 6-2 first-round win against Jelena Ostapenko and Yulia Putintseva when Serena took a medical timeout in the second set.
One of a Grand Slam-record 51 players age 30 and over who started in the men’s main draw, Ivo Karlovic became – at 37 – the oldest man to reach the third round at a major since Jimmy Connors at the 1991 U.S. Open.
Advertisement
Fourth-seeded Garbine Muguruza is through to the third round of the French Open, beating wild-card entry Myrtille Georges 6-2, 6-0.
