No. 1 Barty Retires with Injury, Djokovic, Federer and Nadal Move into Third Round of Roland Garros
(June 3, 2021) Top seed Ashleigh Barty is out of the French Open. The Australian who won Roland Garros in 2019 withdrew from her match against Magda Linette on Thursday down 6-1, 2-2 with a hip injury.
“I was battling the pain, and it just became too severe, and like I said, was becoming unsafe,” she said after the match.
Coming into Paris she was 11-2 on clay for this year. She did not play in Paris last year to defend her title due to the COVID pandemic. She said that this was heartbreaking. “We have had such a brilliant clay-court season, and to kind of get a little bit unlucky with timing, more than anything, to have something kind of acute happen over the weekend and just kind of run out of time against the clock is disappointing.”
Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer all advanced to the men’s third round.
No. 1 Djokovic made quick work of Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas 6-3, 6-2, 6-4. The Serbian will next play unseeded Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis. Djokovic is seeking his second French Open title and and 19th major overall.
Eighth seeded Federer beat Marin Cilic 6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2.
“I think I played a really good match, I surprised myself a bit. I didn’t think I could play at this level for 2 ½ hours against Marin,” Federer said.
Federer will face off against unseeded Dominik Koepfer, who beat No. 30 Taylor Fritz 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.in the third round. He has the potential to play Djokovic in the quarterfinals.
Rafael Nadal, celebrating his 35th birthday, dismissed France’s Richard Gasquet, 6-0, 7-5, 6-2, in the night session.
Last year’s finalist, and 2020 Australian Open winner, Sofia Kenin beat U.S. countrywoman, 19-year-old Hailey Baptiste 7-5, 6-3. Kenin who, had her appendix removed after the Australian Open earlier this year, fired her father as her coach. The No. 4 seedcame into the tournament with a 7-8 record in clay court events this year.
No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina beat American Ann Li 6-0, 6-4 in the second round. Svitolina’s fiancé, 14th seed Gael Monfils lost to Mikael Ymer 6-0, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3. Ymer is the first Swedish man to reach the third round at the French Open since Robin Soderling did it in 2011.
Sloane Stephens, a 2018 Roland Garros finalist, beat a Top 10 player for the first time in 30 months. She toppled 9th seed Karolina Pliskova 7-5, 6-1 victory. Stephens who won the US Open in 2017, is currently ranked 59th in the world.
More to follow…..
