Raonic dispatches Brazilian
PARIS (CP) — Canada’s Milos Raonic is through to the third round of the French Open after a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 win over Brazil’s Rogerio Dutra Silva on Wednesday.
Raonic fired his 25th ace of the day on match point to set up a third-round meeting with Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
The two hour 23 minute match could have been decided quicker had Raonic been more successful on break chances. The fifth seed from Thornhill, Ont., won just five of 20 break points.
After dropping a first set where he was broken twice, Raonic controlled the next two before running into trouble in the fourth.
Raonic and Dutra Silva held serve until the ninth game, where the Brazilian faced triple break point. But Raonic couldn’t put the Brazilian away until his seventh break point, throwing his racket to the ground at one point.
Raonic was 1-for-7 on break points in the fourth set.
Still, Raonic went into game 10 up 5-4 and emphatically put the match away with his booming serve, winning every point with an ace.
Raonic has won both his career meetings with Garcia-Lopez: a Davis Cup win in 2013 and a victory at Miami in 2014, both on hardcourt.
In women’s action, Montreal’s Francoise Abanda was bounced from the second round after losing 6-0, 6-0 to 11th-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark.
Abanda, playing in her first French Open, was broken six times on eight chances by the former world No. 1.
Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., plays her second-round match today against 17th-seed Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia.
In other action on Day 4:
The 12th-seeded Frenchman JoWilfried Tsonga left meekly, eliminated 7-5, 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-4 by 91stranked Renzo Olivo of Argentina after only one game Wednesday in a match suspended a night earlier because of darkness. It was 2008 Australian Open runner-up Tsonga’s first loss in the first round in Paris since his debut 12 years ago.
“Last week, I won my first-ever clay tournament,” Tsonga said, referring to an event in Lyon. “And today, I lost at the French Open. It’s the paradox of tennis.”
No call for such reflection from those who advanced, including defending champion Novak Djokovic and nine-time champion Rafael Nadal among the men, and defending champion Garbine Muguruza, former No. 1s Venus Williams (whose pregnant sister Serena was in the stands) and Caroline Wozniacki among the women. There were a couple of surprises: No. 6 Dominika Cibulkova was beaten 6-4, 6-3 by 114th-ranked Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, while 18-year-old Californian CiCi Bellis defeated No. 18 Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands 6-3, 7-6 (5).
Two-time major champion Petra Kvitova, who needed surgery on her left hand after a knife attack at her home in December, bowed out in the second match of her comeback, a 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5) loss to American qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands.