Paris (AFP)

It is a wild card well used: Clara Burel, 19 years old and 357th in the world, reached Thursday the third round of Roland Garros where the French presence is historically rarefied, while Novak Djokovic continued his path.

For his first participation in the main draw of the French Open, Burel authoritatively dismissed the Slovenian Kaja Juvan (also 19 but 103rd in the WTA) 7-6 (8-6), 6-2 to accompany Caroline Garcia in the third round .

Of the eleven French women involved, only they two have reached this stage, but they can still be joined by Fiona Ferro (49th) who faces the Kazakhe Elena Rybakina (18th) in the evening.

In the men's table, only Hugo Gaston (239th) will defend the French chances when they were 18 in the first round.

The young 20-year-old Toulousain will face the first cador of his career on Friday, in this case the 2015 Roland-Garros winner, Stan Wawrinka.

Clara Burel could have been confronted with Alizé Cornet (52nd) to ensure a French presence in the round of 16, but the 30-year-old Niçoise could not pass the obstacle Shuai Zhang (39th): the Chinese won 6 -4, 7-6 (7/3) and it is she who will face the Breton.

Ex-N.1 in the world juniors, Burel is coming back from a wrist injury and thus reaches a new milestone in the wake of her first victory on the main circuit, obtained in Strasbourg just before Roland-Garros over the Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko.

- Queen of surprise -

The day at Porte d'Auteuil began with the early elimination of the N.2 seed Karolina Pliskova.

It must be said that she was opposed to the queen of surprise Jelena Ostapenko.

Until this 2020 edition, the Latvian (43rd) has played four Roland-Garros tournaments since 2016: she has lost each time in the first round, except in 2017 when ... she won the title, her only trophy of the Grand Slam to date.

"It's hard to compare because it was three years ago and I wasn't afraid of anything and no one knew me. Now the players know what I'm capable of," said the Latvian.

In the men's table, without playing his best tennis, Novak Djokovic flew over his match in the second round by erasing the Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis (66th) 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 in just 1h23.

As in the first round, the world No. 1 lost only five games.

- Tsitsipas makes up for time -

If we did not expect the Serbian to experience difficulties, on the other hand the easy victory of Stefanos Tsitsipas (6th) at the expense of the Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas (60th) was less predictable.

The 22-year-old Greek, who came out only narrowly in the first round after being led 2 sets to 0 by Jaume Munar (109th), took barely an hour and a half to sweep Cuevas 6 -1, 6-4, 6-2.

"I'm very happy with my game, I was very aggressive from the start of the match, I wanted to be 100% present. I'm happy to have won in three sets today after my very complicated first round", commented the Hamburg finalist on Sunday (beaten by Rublev).

The big match of the day, to applaud the thousands of empty seats on the Suzanne-Lenglen court, pitted the great Canadian hope Denis Shapovalov (11th) against the Spaniard Roberto Carballes (101st).

Against all expectations, it was the second who won 7-5, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 3-6, 8-6 after a five-hour showdown.

"It's crazy, for me, to win a match like that on this court, admitted the Spaniard. He was very aggressive but I had a very solid match."

Carballes thus signed at the age of 27 his first victory in five sets, his first victory against a player as well classified (Shapovalov was 10th at ATP the week before Roland-Garros) and obtained his first participation in the third round of a Grand Slam tournament.

© 2020 AFP