Another sensation from Andreeva
Mirra Andreeva continues to work wonders at Roland Garros. In the first round, she coped with the experienced American Alison Riske in less than an hour, giving her only three games. The Russian woman coped with Diane Parry just as confidently.
The Frenchwoman in the first round knocked out of the fight Angelina Kalinina, who reached the final of the "Masters" in Rome, but could not compete for the trophy, because she was injured. By Roland Garros, the Ukrainian managed to heal the injury, but the forced pause without training affected the game. It took Parry only two sets to defeat his opponent.
Diane is also a very young athlete. She is only 20 years old. However, she already has a lot of experience playing at Grand Slam tournaments, she made her debut at the majors in 2019, and last season reached the third round at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. However, this year the Frenchwoman does not shine with success. At the Australian Open, she was eliminated in the first round, after which she did not go to the main draws of WTA-level competitions, while Mirra, on the contrary, superbly held the Masters in Rome, losing only to Aryna Sabalenka. Therefore, Parry, despite the higher positions in the ranking, was not at all the favorite of the meeting with Andreeva, which was confirmed by the game itself.
And if at the beginning of the match on her serve, the Russian woman was a little worried and made mistakes, then in the second game she was able to pull herself together and imposed a fight on her opponent, earning three break points and converting one of them. As it turned out, this moment was in many ways the key. The Frenchwoman was nervous and more and more often did not get into the court in length. As a result, she made three times more unforced errors per set than the Russian: 15 against 5. However, Mirra herself escalated the situation: she acted perfectly at the net, bypassed Parry in the number of winners, and at the end of the game Diane took the serve "to zero".
The second set was more difficult for Andreeva. She immediately made a break thanks to another mistake of the Frenchwoman, who at the most inopportune moment made a double. However, then she unexpectedly allowed her opponent to equalize.
Fortunately, the decline in Mirra's game, observed around this time and in the first round, turned out to be temporary. And then a stubborn struggle unfolded in two games of Parry: in both, the audience saw 14 draws. Diane resisted and did not allow the Russian to convert break points. There were as many as nine of them, but Andreeva continued to press and still achieved her goal.
Andreeva became the first tennis player under the age of 2009 since 17 to reach the third round of Roland Garros. Only six girls had a similar result in history: Anna Kournikova, Iva Majoli, Martina Hingis, Serena Williams, Cecile Karatancheva and Michelle Larcher de Britou.
Defeat performed by Alexandrova
Not so lucky with rival Diana Schneider. She got Beatriz Haddad-Maia, who occupies the 14th line of the WTA ranking. However, the Russian woman has already defeated tennis players from the top 20 this year. In Charleston, Veronika Kudermetova was defeated. It was not easy in the match with the 20-year-old tennis player and the representative of Brazil. She calmly won in the first set: the domestic athlete made a lot of mistakes and could not do anything on the second serve, winning only 2 points out of 13 on it, and the first one passed through her every other time (64%).
However, then the situation changed. Schneider began to attack more actively: 14 winners against 2 in the first game. And there is nothing left of the Haddad-Mayan advantage. There was an absolutely equal struggle: the girls took turns taking each other's serves, and in the 10th game with a score of 5:4, Diana even had a setball, but Beatrice survived, but in the 12th the Russian woman turned out to be stronger - 7:5.
And in the third set, the experience of the Brazilian played a key role. Both tennis players were already tired, and Haddad-Maia began to take advantage of this, increasingly sending her opponent into races from one corner of the court to another. Began to bring results and shortened. However, Beatrice was able to make the first break only in the fifth game, and won the game only three points more. But this was enough to win - 6:4.
In the next round, Haddad-Maia will face Ekaterina Alexandrova. She defeated Anna-Lena Fridzam in her match, allowing her opponent to take only two games in the first set - 6:2, 6:0. The Russian woman turned out to be stronger in almost all respects. I made four times more winners (16 vs. 4), made 10 fewer unforced errors. The German served a little better with the first ball, but it did not help her at all. At the reception, Alexandrova won 56% of the points.
Interestingly, for the 28-year-old Russian, the third round of Grand Slam tournaments is a kind of stumbling block. Further on the "majors" she could not pass. Although the athlete began to show her best results only at the end of last year, winning the tournaments in Seoul and 's-Hertogenbosch. And it's time to interrupt this tradition: especially since Alexandrova's rival is quite up to her. The statistics of personal meetings, however, in favor of the Brazilian (2: 0), but the last time the girls played with each other was in 2017.
The main favorites of Roland Garros continue to fight in the tournament: Iga Swiatek gave only four games in the match with American Claire Liu. Elena Rybakina did not experience difficulties either. The representative of Kazakhstan turned out to be stronger than the Czech Linda Noskova.
Battle of Karatsev
A very difficult opponent in the second round went to Aslan Karatsev. If the Russian only at the "Masters" in Madrid finally remembered past successes and reached the semifinals, then Frances Tiafoe won the tournament in Houston and stopped one step away from the decisive match at the "thousand" in Indian Wells, losing to another Russian Daniil Medvedev.
Aslan started the confrontation with the American well. Still, he feels confident on clay this season, having won 14 out of 20 matches. The tennis player successfully went to the net and made 1 11 winners against three from the opponent, but the first break happened only in the sixth game: Karatsev hit hard from the forehand exactly into the sideline and led 4:2. That was enough to win the set.
But gradually, the small advantage of the Russian began to melt due to his own actions at key moments. He gave up the second set because of two doubles made at Tiafoe's break points. The American, on the other hand, played almost flawlessly. For the entire match, he made only 13 unforced errors against Aslan's 44.
However, even in such a situation, everything did not look critical for Karatsev. The third set began with an exchange of breaks and then there was an equal and stubborn struggle. With a score of 5:4, Aslan even managed to earn two set points, but did not convert them, making mistakes from the forehand on the reception. Francis ended the game with an ace. This episode inspired Tiafoe, and he took the opponent's serve, and with it then won the game.
The failure affected Aslan's psychological state: in the fourth set, he gave his first game to zero. And then he could not return equality in the confrontation. At the reception, he won only 4 points out of 20. And in the end, an incredible decline followed: the Russian made two doubles in a row and gave the opponent a break, and then Tiafoe was able to make three aces and on the first attempt realized one of the three matchballs - 6:2.
Of course, it is possible that Aslan's game in the end was influenced by a thigh injury sustained in Madrid. He began to act not so quickly and did not have time to get the balls. However, in the last two games, there was a feeling that Aslan just gave up.
In the men's bracket of the tournament on this day, there were sensations. Italian Jannik Sinner leaves Roland Garros, he lost to Daniel Altmaier in five sets. In this match, the fans saw three tiebreakers at once.