French Open: Aryna Sabalenka enters 3R; Elina Svitolina to play Anna Blinkova again!

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Aryna Sabalenka made her way into the third round of the French Open on Wednesday. The world no. 2 defeated Iryna Shyamanovich 7-5, 6-2 in almost an hour-and-a-half. The match twisted and turned between both players with Sabalenka first getting the break in the opening set before the qualifier wrested it back.

Sabalenka’s game looked to be more put together than in her first match against Kostyuk on Sunday. The second seed did suffer a small setback in the second set as well but unlike in the first, was able to deal with Shyamanovich’s shot-making better.

In the eighth game of the set, Sabalenka brought up three match points for herself on the 214th-ranked Shyamanovich’s serve. The 25-year-old saved the first but an error gave the match away to the reigning Australian Open winner.

Sabalenka hit 21 winners and 23 unforced errors to her opponent’s 13 winners and 17 unforced errors. Shyamanovich, however, had twice as many forced errors as her higher-ranked rival’s 17. This is the fourth year in a row that Sabalenka’s made it to the round-of-32 at Roland Garros.

The 25-year-old will play either Magdalena Frech or Kamilla Rakhimova next.

French Open: Elina Svitolina vs Anna Blinkova take 2 on the cards!

A day after her husband Gael Monfils scored a stupendous five-set win over Sebastian Baez, coming from two breaks down in the decider, Elina Svitolina notched a comeback win of her own to enter the third round.

The Ukrainian defeated Storm Hunter 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 in an hour and 49 minutes in their round-of-64 clash. This is the first time since 2021 that the 28-year-old’s reaching the third round in Paris. Last year, Svitolina missed the Major due to pregnancy.

Svitolina will next have a rematch of the Strasbourg International final against Anna Blinkova. Blinkova survived Caroline Garcia’s relentless in their second-round match-up. The world no. 56 eventually kept the highest-ranked French player at home, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 after almost three hours.

In the third set, Blinkova went up 5-3 and served for the match for the first time in the 10th game. She had three match points in that game but Garcia staved them both off to break for five-all. In the 11th game, Garcia dropped her serve yet again giving Blinkova a second opportunity to take the match.

This time around, she squandered five match points before capturing the win on her ninth match point. Lastly, Daria Kasatkina overcame a tricky match against Marketa Vondrousova to reach the French Open third round. The ninth seed took an hour and 42 minutes to post a 6-3, 6-4 victory.

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