PARIS — Defending ladies’s champion Iga Swiatek joined No.1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka within the fourth spherical of the French Open on Friday and neither participant has dropped a set to this point.
Sabalenka, a three-time Grand Slam winner who has solely as soon as reached the semifinals on the French Open, beat Olga Danilovic 6-2, 6-3 on Courtroom Philippe-Chatrier, the place Friday’s scorching climate contrasted with earlier days.
“The ball flies a lot sooner,” Sabalenka stated. “The bounces are a lot greater.”
Swiatek, who has received 4 of her 5 main titles at Roland-Garros, defeated Jaqueline Cristian 6-2, 7-5 on Courtroom Suzanne-Lenglen to increase her French Open profitable streak to 23 matches. However a second set lasting 1 hour, 16 minutes examined the 23-year-old Polish participant, who yelled in aid after profitable on her second match level.
“She used her probabilities and simply went for it,” stated Swiatek, who loved temperatures which reached 29 levels Celsius (84 Fahrenheit). “For positive I do not thoughts. On clay it provides the balls the additional bounce.”
Sabalenka and Swiatek, who had 20 winners and 21 unforced errors in her win, have been in contrasting type.
The 27-year-old Sabalenka has reached six singles finals this yr, essentially the most for a lady getting into Roland Garros since Serena Williams in 2013.
However Swiatek is seeking to attain her first last wherever since profitable her third straight French Open title, and fourth general, right here final yr.
Swiatek is seeking to turn into the primary girl to win right here 4 successive instances within the Open period. Her first title got here in 2020. Her different main was in 2022 on the U.S. Open.
Requested who was underneath essentially the most strain to win this yr’s French Open – her or Swiatek – Sabalenka stated, jokingly: “Let’s simply depart it on Iga since she received it, what, 3 times in a row?”
Defending males’s champion Carlos Alcaraz of Spain was in motion later Friday. The No.2-ranked Alcaraz confronted Damir Dzumhur, who harm his left knee throughout a fall in his second-round win.
What else occurred on the French Open on Friday? In different ladies’s play, Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen beat 18-year-old qualifier Victoria Mboko 6-3, 6-4, whereas No. 16 Amanda Anisimova and Liudmila Samsonova additionally superior.
In remaining third-round ladies’s play, former U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff faces Marie Bouzkova on Courtroom Philippe-Chatrier, and No. 3 Jessica Pegula, the runner-up eventually yr’s U.S. Open, performs former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova earlier on the identical court docket. There’s an all-American contest on Courtroom Suzanne-Lenglen between present Australian Open champion Madison Keys and former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, who received that main in 2020, the yr she went on to lose within the French Open last to Swiatek.
