It was the first day of the fourth round matches, and four of the french open quarter-finalists have been decided.
Taking an impressive 65 minutes to complete her quest to make the quarter-finals was 13th seed; Madison Keys. She won 6-1, 6-4, dropping five games against Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania. Mihaela has had an extremely successful tournament considering she is ranked outside of the top 30, and knocked out the 4th seed; Svitolina in the third round.
Madison Keys will face Yulia Putintseva in the quarter finals. Previous to the 2018 french open championships, Yulia Putintseva had never made it past the first round. Now, she is in the quarter-finals. She beat 26th seed; Barbora Strycova in straight sets.
First out on Suzanne-Lenglen was 2nd seed; Alexander Zverev. He played Karen Khachanov who knocked out clay-court specialist; Garcia-Lopez in the second round, and 15th seed; Pouille in the third round. It wasn’t meant to be for Khachanov who lost 6-4, 6-7, 6-2, 3-6, 3-6. He is one hell of a player, and it won’t be long before he makes it into the top 15.
Alexander Zverev had a tough match, and will be happy to have made it through to his first quarter-finals at the french open. I have really enjoyed getting to know him over the last week or so, and find him not just a great on-court talent, but an endearing player who has a very positive attitude which is hard to find in the younger generation in tennis.
Zverev will have a much tougher task in the quarter-final as he will face 7th seed; Dominic Thiem.
Dominic Thiem played on court Philippe-Chatrier today against the Japanese favourite; Kei Nishikori. Whilst Kei put in one hell of a fight, it just wasn’t meant to be for him. Thiem won 6-2, 6-0, 5-7, 6-4. He will go on to face 2nd seed; Alexander Zverev (as mentioned above) in the quarter-finals.
It was a sub-60 match for Sloane Stephens. I expected Stephens to win, but not that easy. She only dropped two games. Kontaveit was not in good form, and seemed as though she was struggling for energy following a tiring match against Petra Kvitova in the previous round.
I have to say, Marco Cecchinato has had an incredible french open tournament. Hes world number 72, and he's beat the 10th seed in the third round, and 8th seed; David Goffin today, in the fourth round. Before this tournament, he had never won a grand slam match, and now he’s in the quarter-finals!
He will face the former world number 1; Novak Djokovic who won his fourth round match against Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
To be continued...