Wozniacki moves ahead, Venus shown the door
Caroline Wozniacki moved a step closer to erasing an unwanted footnote from the list of her tennis achievements with a 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova in the French Open fourth round on Sunday.
Wozniacki is that rare beast: a twice year-end world number one-ranked tennis player who has never won a Grand Slam.
Wozniacki, who made her only other last-eight appearance in Paris in 2010, faces either Australia’s Samantha Stosur or Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia for a semi-final place. “Svetlana’s a great player, especially on clay so I knew it wouldn’t be easy,” said the 26-year-old after her eighth win in 14 meetings against the Russian.
VENUS LOSES
Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky qualified for her third successive French Open quarter-final with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 win over 2002 runner-up Venus Williams on Sunday. The 30th seed will take on France’s Kristina Mladenovic who beat defending champion Garbine Muguruza 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 for a place in the semi-finals.
Her victory over Venus means a first-time major champion will be crowned next Saturday.
Fifth seed Elina Svitolina huffed and puffed into the fourth round with an error-ridden 6-4 7-5 victory over Poland’s Magda Linette in a rain-delayed match.
Svitolina, one of the pre-tournament favourites after winning titles at the Rome and Istanbul claycourt tournaments, made 25 unforced errors and served five double faults before overpowering the World No 94.
Second seed Karolina Pliskova advanced to the fourth round with a 7-5, 6-1 victory over Carina Witthoeft. Pliskova has won just twice in five previous French Open appearances before this year.
SANIA ADVANCES
Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig beat Artem Sitak and Elina Svitolina 6-2, 6-4 to enter the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles at the French Open. Mirza and Dodig hit five aces to win in an hour and four minutes. They will now face either the duo of Gabriela Dabrowski and Rohan Bopanna or the French duo Chloé Paquet and Benoît Paire, in the last eight of the tournament.