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PARIS (AFP) – World No. 1 Iga Swiatek was the one prime 10 ladies’s seed left standing on the French Open on Saturday as Casper Ruud and Holger Rune gave Roland Garros a uncommon Nordic twist with landmark performances.
Swiatek, the 2020 champion, dropped serve 3 times in opposition to Ninety fifth-ranked Danka Kovinic of Montenegro earlier than sealing a 6-3, 7-5 third spherical victory, her thirty first successive win.
“I wished to play actually aggressively however generally I felt I used to be hitting with an excessive amount of energy and it was onerous to manage,” stated the 20-year-old Pole.
Swiatek’s successful streak is the most effective since Serena Williams’s 34 successive victories in 2013.
She subsequent faces Chinese language teenager Zheng Qinwen who made the final 16 on her debut when French veteran Alize Cornet, taking part in in her 61st consecutive Grand Slam, retired with a leg harm, trailing 6-0, 3-0.
Having surprised 2018 champion Simona Halep within the second spherical, Zheng turns into solely the fourth Chinese language girl to make the fourth spherical in Paris the place compatriot Li Na captured her landmark Slam title in 2011.
“I at all times knew I had the extent to do properly, now I simply wish to preserve going,” stated the 19-year-old Zheng, ranked at 74.
Cornet, the final Frenchwoman within the draw, was booed off by the Court docket Philippe Chatrier crowd.
“It damage greater than my harm,” she stated.
Spain’s Paula Badosa, who made the quarter-finals in 2021, retired because of a calf harm when she was trailing Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova 6-3, 2-1.
Aryna Sabalenka, the seventh seed, slipped to a 4-6, 6-1, 6-0 defeat in opposition to Italy’s Camila Giorgi.
Eighth-seeded Casper Ruud grew to become the primary Norwegian man to achieve the final 16 with a 6-2, 6-7 (3/7), 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego.
Ruud hit 39 winners and goes on to face Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, a Wimbledon semi-finalist final 12 months who can also be within the final 16 in Paris for the primary time.
In the meantime, Holger Rune grew to become the primary Danish man within the Roland Garros fourth spherical since 1959 when he knocked out France’s final man, Hugo Gaston.
Rune, 19, and ranked at 40, breezed to a 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 win and subsequent faces 2021 runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The final Danish man to make a Slam fourth spherical was Kenneth Carlsen on the 1993 Australian Open.
Fourth seed Tsitsipas wanted simply 92 minutes to clinch a 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 win over Ninety fifth-ranked Mikael Ymer.
The Greek star needed to come again from two units right down to beat Lorenzo Musetti after which wanted 4 hours and 4 units to see off 134th-ranked qualifier Zdenek Kolar in his first two outings.
World quantity two Daniil Medvedev eased via by defeating Serbian twenty eighth seed Miomir Kecmanovic, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2.
Mackenzie McDonald, the Sixtieth-ranked American, misplaced to Italian eleventh seed Jannik Sinner after managing to squander 11 set factors within the second set.
Sinner, a quarter-finalist in 2020, triumphed 6-3, 7-6 (8/6), 6-3 and can face seventh-seeded Andrey Rublev for a last-eight spot.
Rublev, additionally a quarter-finalist two years in the past, defeated Chile’s Cristian Garin 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (13/11).
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