Serena Williams, who continues to pursue a historic 24th Grand Slam title, sealed her ticket to the second week of Roland Garros on Friday, to which she will return for the first time since 2018, a round that will be played for the first time in Paris by Russian Daniil Medvedev , like his Chilean rival Cristian Garín.
Nor did the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (world No. 5) fail this Friday, who had to overcome a first set against to finish winning the American John Isner (34th) by 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (7 / 3).
It was also a good day for the Spanish in the men’s team, with victories for Pablo Carreño and Alejandro Davidovich, who will be the next rival for Argentine Federico Delbonis.
Delbonis (51st in the ATP ranking), defeated Italian Fabio Fognini (29th) 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 in a game that had to be suspended for several minutes because of the rain.
– Delbonis unstoppable –
The 30-year-old tennis player remains unstoppable at this Roland Garros, the ninth in which he has participated in a row, and will play the round of 16 for the first time.
In the French capital he had not passed the second round, and never before in his 26 previous Grand Slam appearances has Delbonis crept into the top 16.
Garín (23rd in the world), meanwhile, defeated American Marcos Giron (84th) 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2.
Garín, whose Grand Slam ceiling was the third round reached precisely in Paris last year, will have to gnaw a hard bone on his way to the quarterfinals, the world number two, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, who defeated another American on Friday, Reilly Opelka (35º).
Regarding his next rival, he stated: «I think it’s good that he doesn’t like the land, but he’s a great player, he has had very good victories on this surface, I’m going to play against the 2nd in the world. I admire him, he is a very tough opponent ».
A regular in the second weeks in the Grand Slam, Pablo Carreño (12th in the world) beat American Steve Johnson (88th) 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 in the third round in just over two hours of play.
But Carreño’s path in this edition of Roland Garros becomes extremely complicated in the round of 16, where he awaits the Greek, fifth in the world, Stefanos Tsitsipas, winner of his first Masters 1000 in Monte Carlo in mid-April, and who made Rafa Nadal sweat in Barcelona, and later to Novak Djokovic in Rome.
And Davidovich equaled his best performance in the Grand Slam (US Open 2020) after defeating Norwegian Casper Ruud (16th) 7-6 (7/3), 2-6, 7-6 (8/6), 0 in a Homeric match. -6, 7-5.
In addition to Medvedev, another of the favorites did not fail, the German Alexander Zverev (6th in the world), who qualified for the eighth in Paris for the fourth consecutive year after in three straight sets to the Serbian Laslo Djere (55th).
– Serena doesn’t stop –
The inscription on his flashy fluorescent sneakers is a statement of intent: “I will never stop.”
At Roland Garros, Serena Williams hadn’t come this far since the 2018 edition.
A year later she was ejected in the third round, and last European fall in the second.
The youngest of the Williams sisters, despite wearing a bulky bandage on her right thigh, defeated her compatriot Danielle Collins (50th), 6-4, 6-4.
Serena had a set and a break lead before Collins slipped back into the game to go 4-1 in the second set.
But Serena scored five games in a row to win the match in 1 hour and 25 minutes.
Those games “he didn’t give them to me, I had to earn credit to take them,” Serena estimated.
In the round of 16 they will face off with the Kazakh Elena Rybakina (22nd).
Despite a first set against, and with a second decided to the tie-break, the Spanish Paula Badosa finally managed to defeat the Romanian Ana Bogdan and qualify for the round of 16 at Roland Garros, in a part of the table in which there was no will face the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (4th in the world), eliminated this Friday.
Badosa, 35th in the world and the last Spanish survivor in the women’s singles table, beat Romanian Ana Bogdan (102nd) 2-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-4 in the third round.
Now she will have to eliminate Czech Marketa Vondrusova (21st) in the second round. (GG) (AFP)