US’ Coco Gauff enters French Open quarterfinals for third consecutive year

Issued on: 05/06/2023 – 19:36Modified: 05/06/2023 – 20:47

Next for Gauff will be a rematch against No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who beat the 19-year-old American in last year’s final at Roland Garros and is 6-0 overall in their head-to-head meetings.

Swiatek advanced Monday when her opponent, Lesia Tsurenko, stopped playing because of trouble breathing while trailing 5-1 in the first set.

Gauff grabbed a 5-2 lead against Schmiedlova, but then things got more interesting. Gauff got broken while serving for the set at 5-2 and again at 5-4.

She helped the 100th-ranked Schmiedlova – who had never been past the third round at a major tournament – with a double-fault, then dumped a forehand into the net to end a 21-stroke exchange, making it 5-all. In the next game, Gauff stumbled on the slippery clay in sun-splashed but windy Court Philippe Chatrier, skinning her right knee, which she said afterward was fine.

“It’s something that reminds me … I used to always scrape my knee as a kid,” Gauff said. “I’ve never gone through clay season without scraping my knee.”

After she gathered herself to claim that set, Gauff was visited by a trainer, who placed a white bandage just below her knee. The edges of that patch began to curl up as Gauff played, and she removed it soon after.

The breeze affected play throughout.

“I wasn’t really that prepared for it going in,” said Gauff, who double-faulted seven times. “The one side was gusting, like, really crazy.”

The other quarterfinal on the top half of the draw Wednesday will be No. 7 Ons Jabeur of Tunisia vs. No. 14 Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil.

Tuesday’s women’s quarterfinals are Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka vs. Elina Svitolina, and 2021 French Open finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkovs vs. Karolina Muchova. The only seeded player in the bunch is No. 2 Sabalenka.

The men’s quarterfinals will feature a redo of a contentious matchup last year in that round: No. 4 Casper Ruud against No. 6 Holger Rune. Other men’s matches Monday were No. 27 Yoshihito Nishioka vs. Tomas Martin Etcheverry, and No. 22 Alexander Zverev vs. No. 28 Grigor Dimitrov at night.

Ruud, the 2022 runner-up to Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros and to Carlos Alcaraz at the U.S. Open, returned to the round of eight in Paris by defeating Nicolas Jarry 7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-5. Jarry, who served an 11-month ban in 2020 for a positive doping test, went up 4-1 in the second set and 4-2 in the third, but Ruud turned things around.

Rune, a 20-year-old from Denmark, edged No. 23 Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) across a minute shy of four hours.

In the fifth set, Rune appeared to be in trouble while trailing 4-3 and serving at love-40. But he then won 10 of the next 11 points to get back into things. In the tiebreaker, Cerundolo took a 7-6 lead, before Rune reeled off the last four points.

“Moments like this,” Rune said, “stay with you forever.”

Jabeur was the runner-up at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last season, but she exited the French Open in the first round and it was the only major at which she hadn’t been to the quarterfinals until now. She got there by beating Bernarda Pera, an American ranked 36th, 6-3, 6-1.

Jabeur managed to win all eight of Pera’s service games, helped by taking 15 of 16 second-serve points. Pera didn’t help herself, either, by making 33 unforced errors to just 13 winners.

“I was expecting her to play better,” Jabeur said.

Before this trip to Paris, Haddad Maia never had been past the second round at a major, but she is still around this time after outlasting 132nd-ranked Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-7 (3), 6-3, 7-5 in a fourth-rounder that lasted 3 hours, 51 minutes.

“I think tennis is not a 100-meter race. It’s a marathon,” Haddad Maia said. “Especially my matches.”

(AP)