Swiatek races to 30th successive win
Paris, May 26: Unstoppable world number one Iga Swiatek racked up her 30th successive victory at the French Open on Thursday as Karolina Pliskova became the sixth top 10 women’s seed to exit Roland Garros when she was knocked out by world number 227 Leolia Jeanjean.
Swiatek swept past Alison Riske of the United States 6-0, 6-2 to reach the third round.
The 2020 champion in Paris is on the best streak since Serena Williams’s 34match winning run in 2013 and goes on to face Danka Kovinic of Montenegro for a place in the last 16.
Swiatek raced through the first set against 43rdranked Riske in just 21 minutes and was 3-0 up in the second before the American avoided a ‘double bagel’.
Eighth-seeded Pliskova, last year’s Wimbledon runner-up and a semi-finalist in Paris in 2017, lost 6-2, 6-2 to 26-year-old Jeanjean who cut her teeth as a leading college player in the United States.
Former number one Pliskova joins fellow top 10 seeds, defending champion Barbora Krejcikova, Maria Sakkari, Ons Jabeur, Anett Kontaveit and former winner Garbine Muguruza in failing to get through to the third round.
Jeanjean is the lowestranked woman to beat a
top 10 player at Roland Garros in 34 years.
Daniil Medvedev, the second seed, had few problems in making the third round with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 win over Laslo Djere of Serbia.
Medvedev, who made the quarter-finals in 2021, goes on to face another Serb in Miomir Kecmanovic, the 28th seed.
Danish teenager Holger Rune reached his first Slam third round with a 62, 6-3, 6-3 win over Switzerland’s Henri Laaksonen.
Meanwhile, Spanish
teenage sensation Carlos Alcaraz saved a match point in five-set to enter the third round late on Wednesday night.
Alcaraz, widely tipped as a title contender, rallied from the brink to defeat compatriot Albert RamosVinolas 6-1, 6-7 (7/9), 5-7, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4 after four hours and 34 minutes.
The 19-year-old Alcaraz is attempting to become just the eighth teenager to capture a major men’s title, and backed as the man to break the stranglehold of Djokovic and Nadal.
BOPANNA, SANIA WIN
Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza notched up wins along with their respective partners in the men’s and women’s doubles competitions. While Bopanna and his Dutch partner Matwe Middelkoop marched into the pre-quarterfinals with 6-3, 6-4 win over Andrey Golubev and Fabrice Martin, Sania combined with Czech Republic’s Lucie Hradecka to beat Italy’s Jasmine Paolini and Martina Trevisan 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 in their first round.