Medvedev's ascent, sensation from Pavlyuchenkova and Osaka's "escape": what did the first week of Roland Garros remember?

Three victories of Medvedev in a row

For Russian tennis fans, the long-awaited successes of Daniil Medvedev can be considered the main event of the first week of the French Open. A two-time Grand Slam finalist, he has never won a single match at Roland Garros in his entire career. But this year, he got right to the fourth round and guaranteed himself the second line in the world ranking according to the results of the competition.

Medvedev began his career in the tournament with a meeting with Kazakhstani Alexander Bublik, who, like the Russian, is known for his dislike of the ground. Bagel already made too many mistakes in the first games and almost always gave points on his second serve, so Medvedev managed to seize the advantage and win the first set. In the next game, he immediately won four games in a row and also brought it to victory. Then Bublik took the game into his own hands and took the lead with a score of 5: 3, but then suddenly stopped hitting the first serve and made two double mistakes in a row. Medvedev took advantage of this confusion from his opponent and won the first match in the main clay tournament.

After that, the Russian met with the winner of the junior Roland Garros Tommy Paul from the USA. The American managed to take the first set, but Medvedev did not allow him more. He took the opponent's serve eight times, and this was enough to complete the next three games in his favor. This victory was the 20th for the second racket of the world this season.

In the third round, Medvedev met for the first time with a seeded opponent, and he became the owner of the 32nd Reilly Opelka from the USA.

The Russian had an unsuccessful start in a duel with him, losing with a score of 1: 3, but then won ten games out of 12. Medvedev was especially good at serving and for a long time did not give his opponent a chance at least for a break point.

After spending a little more than an hour and a half on the court, the Russian made it to the 1/8 finals, making only 16 unforced errors for the entire match.

The second week at Roland Garros, Medvedev will begin with a meeting with the Chilean Christian Garin, seeded number 22.

Success of the Big Three

The Big Three, which finally reunited after a long time, does not lag behind the Russians.

Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer found themselves in the same half of the tournament bracket for the first time in the Major and so far are systematically moving towards the only ticket to the final.

The tennis players from Serbia and Spain have had no cause for concern so far.

Djokovic and Nadal won two victories each without losing a single set.

The 13-time Roland Garros champion even scored a steering wheel in the second round meeting with Richard Gasquet, who at that moment remained the last Frenchman in the men's grid of the tournament.

Nadal, who celebrated his 35th birthday, won the 17th match with Gasquet and never lost to him.

The successes of the first and third rackets of the world were hardly surprising.

Tennis lovers were much more interested in what the 39-year-old Federer, who won only one official match after the Australian Open in 2020, will show against their background.

In his second Roland Garros in six years, the Swiss started with a victory over Uzbekistani Denis Istomin, after which he met with the much more dangerous Croat Marina Cilic.

They exchanged the first two sets, in which the score was fixed 6: 2, and reached a tie-break in the third.

In the shortened game, the rivals were equal, but everything was decided by the Croat's double mistake.

After that Federer still brought the match to his victory.

At every Parisian major in which he has participated since 2004, he is sure to reach the third round.

Barty and Osaka's rejections 

The women's tournament has already lost the lion's share of its favorites.

The first three seeded tennis players did not reach the second week of Roland Garros, and the departure of two of them has nothing to do with sports reasons.

The loudest event of the championship was the departure of the Japanese woman Naomi Osaka.

Before the tournament, she announced that she would not communicate with journalists and participate in press conferences so as not to experience unnecessary stress.

She fulfilled her threat after defeating Romanian Patricia-Maria Tsig and was fined $ 15 thousand for this. The organizers warned that they would disqualify the athlete if this happens again, but she voluntarily withdrew from the tournament.

Osaka missed the chance to compete for the first line of the rating and improve her result at Roland Garros - she has never managed to go beyond the third round.

Osaka really had a chance to lead the WTA rankings, since Ashley Barty left the tournament next. She arrived in Paris with an unhealed thigh injury and barely beat American Bernard Peru in the first match. But the Australian did not have enough strength to play with the Polish girl Magda Linette. After losing the first set with a score of 1: 6, Barty was delayed by only four games and finished the match ahead of schedule.

Barty was not the first tennis player who had to leave the tournament due to injury.

Previously, this was done by the Czech Petra Kvitova, seeded at number 11.

She injured her ankle while talking to reporters after the first match.

If Kvitova, following the example of Osaka, refused to be interviewed, she could well continue to play, but instead she let the Russian Elena Vesnina go into the third round.

For the Olympic champion, this was the first time in three years to participate in a Grand Slam tournament, and she immediately went through the first two rounds.

Nobody but Pavlyuchenkova 

After the first two rackets of the world, the Belarusian Arina Sobolenko, seeded under the third number, also left the tournament.

For her, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova became an obstacle on the way to the 1/8 finals.

The Russian woman has presented the main sensation of the tournament so far, beating one of the best tennis players of the current clay season.

Their meeting took place under difficult conditions - it rained in front of her, and the tennis players had to play on a viscous and slow court. Pavlyuchenkova initially lost 1: 3, but then won three games in a row and brought the set to victory thanks to a confident game at the net, which helped to win the last point. Sobolenko managed to win back in the second game, but in the third the Belarusian seemed to be replaced. Starting the set with two double faults, she continued to give points to her opponent, and Pavlyuchenkova actively used this. In the end, the fourth racket of the world did not win a single game, and the Russian tennis player went on.

In addition to Pavlyuchenkova, none of the Russians made it to the fourth round, although Varvara Gracheva will still have such a chance, who is waiting for a meeting with Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk.

In the next match, Pavlyuchenkova will play with another Belarusian Victoria Azarenka and will try to return to the Roland Garros quarterfinals ten years later.

Departures of Tim and Rublev

In the men's grid, the favorites so far more often justify their status, but still, they have not been without losses.

Two tennis players from the top ten seeded failed not only to break into the second week, but even to win at least the match.

These players were Austrian Dominik Tim and Russian Andrei Rublev.

Since 2016, Tim has always reached at least the quarterfinals of Roland Garros and at one time was considered the main contender for victory after Nadal. The Austrian began a new attempt to win the title with the fact that he won two sets against the 68th racket of the world Pablo Andujar from Spain. The 35-year-old athlete has never in his life recouped in such a situation and never beat an opponent from the top five of the world rankings, but this time he was able to interrupt both unsuccessful series. Four and a half hours after the start of the game, Tim suffered an unexpected defeat.

Rublev did not have time to prove himself in Paris, whose match with the German Jan-Lennard Struff developed in a completely different scenario. The Russian lost in the first two games, one of which ended in a tie-break, after which he heroically equalized the score. This year, he has already beaten the 42nd racket of the world twice, but this time the German was stronger in the fifth set. Rublev could not protect the points earned for reaching the quarterfinals, but he will not lose his seventh line in the world rankings until Federer reaches the final.