The Roland Garros finalists in 2018 and 2021, Sloane Stephens and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, had a successful start at this year’s French Open.
In one of the most anticipated matches from the first round, the American Sloane Stephens prevailed by 2-0 (6:0, 6:4) over the former world leader Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic).
The match lasted almost an hour and a half, and the 16th-ranked Karolina Pliskova committed a total of 31 unforced errors, as well as 6 double faults. This completely broke the rhythm of the Czech player, who, however, had its chance. She broke even in the second set, and led by 4:3, but then allowed Sloane Stephens to take three consecutive games, with which she closed the set and won the match.
In the second round, the American tennis player will face Varvara Gracheva (Russia), who defeated Dalma Galfi (Hungary) by 2-1 (6:4, 2:6, 6:1).
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (Russia), the finalist of the previous two seasons, won in just 72 minutes against Linda Fruhvirtova (Czech Republic) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:2). The Russian tennis player hit 25 winners against just 8 for the 18-year-old Czech player. Also, Linda Fruhvirtova allowed 11 double faults, which made Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova’s task quite easy.
In the next stage, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will face her compatriot the 15th-seeded Liudmila Samsonova.
The day turned out to be a bad one for Estonian tennis fans, after the two best players of the Baltic country were eliminated within a few minutes.
Anett Kontaveit, who reached number 2 in the world ranking about a year ago, lost to Bernarda Pera (USA) by 2-0 (6:7, 2:6). Anett Kontaveit led with 4:2 in the first set and with 6-4 at the points in the tiebreak, but finally failed to close the set. In the second set, the Estonian lost three games in a row, and this logically led to her lost. In the next round, Bernarda Pera will face Donna Vekic (Croatia), who defeated Dayana Yastremska (Ukraine) by 2-0 (6:2, 7:5)
Kaia Kanepi had the same fate, losing by 1-2 (1:6, 6:3, 1:6) to 2018 semi-finalist Madison Keys (USA). The 28-year-old American player started the first and third sets winning 5 consecutive games and that was enough for her to win the match.
In the next round, Madison Keys will face her compatriot Kayla Day, who won by 2-0 (7:5, 6:1) over the wild card player Kristina Mladenovic (France).
Yulia Putintseva (Kazakhstan) also advanced to the second round after defeating Maryna Zanevska (Belgium) by 2-0 (7:5, 7:6).
After last week Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) won her first WTA title in almost two years, now she defeated the world’s No 24 Martina Trevisan (Italy) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:2) and obviously is getting back to her best playing form.
In the other match from the day, Camila Osorio (Colombia) eliminated Ana Bogdan (Romania) by 2-1 (3:6, 6:3, 7:5), while Marketa Vondrousova (Czech Republic) defeated Alycia Parks (USA) by 2-0 (6:4, 6:0) and the Russian teenager Diana Shnaider won her opening match versus Rebecca Marino (Canada) by 2-0 (6:3, 7:5).
One of the surprises of the day was the loss of Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion and 12th-seeded Belinda Bencic (Switzerland) to 20-years-old Russian tennis talent Elina Avanesyan by 1-2 (3:6, 6:2, 4:6).