The two favorites of the tournament, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, as well as Stefanos Tsitsipas qualified for the quarter-finals of Roland-Garros on Sunday. The Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, for her part, confirmed her return to the fore before facing the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenk.
Novak Djokovic qualified for the quarter-finals of Roland-Garros on Sunday June 4 by dominating the Peruvian Juan-Pablo Varillas (94th in the world) 6-3, 6-2, 6-2. He reached this stage of the tournament for the 17th time, a new record.
“I’m very proud, but that means I’m not young!”, commented the 36-year-old Serb about this record, obtained by playing his “best tennis since the start of the tournament”.
Rafael Nadal played 16 quarters in the Parisian Major which he won 14 times, while Djokovic is aiming for a third title there to bring the record for Grand Slam titles to 23.
The Serb (3rd) is about to play his 55th quarter-final in a Grand Slam tournament (the record of 58 is held by Roger Federer and Nadal has 47). He has always reached the quarters in Paris since 2010.
To climb into the last four, he will first have to dismiss Russian Karen Khachanov (11th) on Tuesday, who eliminated Italian Lorenzo Sonego (48th) 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (9/7) , 6-1.
Alcaraz extinguishes Musetti and will face Tsitsipas
For his part, the world No.1 Carlos Alcaraz extinguished the talented Italian Lorenzo Musetti (18th), another face of the new generation, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.
Qualified for the quarter-finals, Alcaraz (20) equaled his best result on Parisian clay. He was stopped there by Alexander Zverev, then in the top 5 in the world, a year ago.
The duel between two of the faces of the new generation of world tennis finally ended quickly. At the very beginning of the game, Alcaraz was well shaken and Musetti inspired, but it only lasted a few minutes. Time for the Italian to lead 2-0, and that’s it. “Carlitos” immediately came back up, then he started to have the answer to almost everything and did not let Musetti breathe, defeated in just over two hours.
His sparkling record of 42 winners against only 23 unforced errors speaks volumes about the quality of play of Juan Carlos Ferrero’s protege on Sunday.
Alcaraz and Djokovic are only one victory away from giving life for good in the semi-finals to the shock anticipated from the draw.
For a place in the last four, the young Spaniard will face the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (5th). The latter, opposed to the modest Sebastian Ofner (118th), held his rank to dispose of the Austrian in three sets (7-5, 6-3, 6-0). The Greek finished the game in 1h50 and offered the third quarter-final of his career at Porte d’Auteuil.
Svitolina and Sabalenka qualified
On the women’s side, the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina confirmed her return to the fore by reaching the quarters of Roland-Garros thanks to her victory 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) against the Russian Daria Kasatkina (9th).
As expected, the two players did not shake hands at the end of the match, Kasatkina going directly to greet the chair umpire before giving Svitolina a thumbs-up in congratulations on her victory.
Kasatkina has repeatedly taken a stand against the Russian-led war in Ukraine, and accepts the fact that Ukrainian women do not greet Russians or Belarusians.
As against Blinkova, Svitolina paradoxically had more difficulty winning her service games than those of her opponent. She was thus unable to conclude on her first match point when she served at 5-4 in the second set, nor when she served again for the match at 6-5.
She finally managed to complete the match in the decisive game. The former N.3 in the WTA ranking, now 192nd, will meet the Belarusian a (2nd) in the quarter-finals. The latter beat the American Sloane Stephens (30th) 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.
Sabalenka, winner of the Australian Open in January, is the main rival of defending champion Iga Swiatek (N.1) in the race for the trophy this year in Paris, especially since the withdrawal before her third round of the Kazakh Elena Rybakina (4th).
Despite air pockets, the 25-year-old proved on Sunday that she had not lost her tennis when she seemed to have been psychologically affected by the insistence of some journalists to question her on her position regarding the war in Ukraine and its relations with the authoritarian Belarusian head of state Alexander Lukashenko.
On the court Sunday evening, on the occasion of the first night of Roland-Garros dedicated to a women’s match, she quickly took the lead by escaping 5-0 in the first set.
But she then multiplied the unforced errors (25 in total in the round) and allowed Stephens to come back to 5-5 having had a first set point at 5-2, then three others at 5-4.
Sabalenka stopped the bleeding, but could not avoid the decisive game, in which she took the first opportunity to close the set, on her fifth set point.
She then scored the break in the second set to lead 3-2, but she offered the break a little later by committing three unforced errors and a double fault to allow Stephens to pick up at 4-4. In the process, the Belarusian again took the serve of his opponent and served for the match at 5-4. This time, she didn’t shake.
With AFP and Reuters
