2021 French Open: Iga Swiatek advances to the fourth round
2020 French Open winner Iga Swiatek advanced to the fourth round of this year's edition after beating Anett Kontaveit at the Roland Garros on Saturday. Eighth seed Swiatek worked hard for her win (7-6, 6-0) to keep her hopes alive of defending the women's singles crown. Elsewhere, Sofia Kenin, Sloane Stephens, and Barbora Krejcíkova won their respective third-round matches. Here are the details.
For Swiatek, this was her 23rd match win at Grand Slams and her 13th victory at Roland Garros. Notably, she has a 13-1 win-loss record at the French Open, having won 10 successive matches here. This was the third career meeting between Swiatek and Kontaveit. Swiatek claimed her first win after losing both matches against Kontaveit earlier.
Swiatek, who won the Italian Open recently, is on a nine-match winning run. She has won 20 straight sets at the Roland Garros as well. The youngster enjoyed an 75% win on the first serve against Kontaveit. She won four out of five breakpoints. Swiatek also dominated the match in terms of total points (69) and games won (13). She fired just two aces.
Swiatek lost early momentum as Kontaveit took a 2-0 lead. Both players won their next service games as Kontaveit led 4-2. However, Swiatek changed things around, taking a 5-4 lead from nowhere. The game went to a tie-breaker in which Swiatek prevailed (7-4). In the second set, Swiatek broke Jontaveit twice to take a 4-0 lead. She didn't allow Kontaveit any space to recover.
Elina Svitolina became another high-profile casualty at the 2021 French Open. She lost to Krejcikova 3-6, 2-6 in straight sets. The fifth seed Ukrainian follows Ashleigh Barty, Naomi Osaka, Karolina Pliskova, Aryna Sabalenka, Belinda Bencic, and Bianca Andreescu to exit the French Open. Krejcikova is set to face Stephens next, who beat 18th seed Karolina Muchova 6-3, 7-5.
Fourth seed Sofia Kenin came from a set down to beat compatriot Jessica Pagula. Last season's finalist Kenin, who is the highest seed remaining, looked in danger of joining the casualty list when she lost the opening set. However, Kenin hit 48 winners to triumph 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. It was a mixed display that had 41 unforced errors and 10 double faults.
