At least one Russian woman is guaranteed to perform in the second week of Roland Garros

Anastasia Potapova made it to the third round of the French Open for the first time in her career. Photo: Reuters

Potapova in three sets with a score of 3:6, 6:4, 6:1 defeated the Egyptian Mayar Sherif Ahmed Sherif, who occupies the 54th line of the WTA rating.

And then we are waiting for the second Russian derby at the tournament. After all, Potapova’s next opponent will be her namesake Pavlyuchenkova, who defeated her compatriot Lyudmila Samsonova yesterday (4:6, 7:5, 7:5). This means that in the fourth round, that is, in the second week of the French Open, at least one Russian athlete is guaranteed to perform.

The first racket of Russia and the ninth racket of the world Daria Kasatkina also made it to the third round. She confidently coped with the Czech Marketa Vondrousova (60) – 6:4, 6:4. And Anna Blinkova (56) defeated the owner of the courts and the fifth racket of the world Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia (4:6, 6:3, 7:5).

3 Russians won the French Open. These are Anastasia Myskina (2004), Svetlana Kuznetsova (2009) and Maria Sharapova, who won the trophy twice (2012 and 2014)

Medvedev on the positive side

Right at the start of the French Open, many seeded tennis players stumbled. In the men’s tournament, the struggle was so stubborn that for the first time in 40 years, 18 five-set matches were played at once. There were incredible comebacks when Frenchman Gael Monfils went 0-4 down in the deciding set to beat Argentina’s Sebastian Baes (3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 1-6, 7-5). But there were also failures, like the Russian Daniil Medvedev, who fought for more than 4 hours with the 172nd racket of the world Thiago Wild and eventually lost – 6:7 (5:7), 7:6 (8:6), 6:2 , 3:6, 4:6.

The last time the second seed was eliminated in the first round in Paris was in 2000, when Mark Philippoussis sent Pete Sampras home. If you look at the statistics for all Grand Slam tournaments, the second racket was out of work at the very start at the Australian Open 2002. It was Gustavo Kuerten. As for Medvedev, he has not lost in the first rounds of the Majors since 2020. But he reacted philosophically and tried to find a positive in the current situation. Here’s what Daniel said at the press conference…

About defeat

– Of course, I’m very disappointed. I will think about this match during the week, but at the moment I do not understand what I did wrong. In Paris, in my opinion, I played well, I tried, I fought. I didn’t feel like I used to when I felt like I couldn’t do anything on this surface. Today I felt like I was doing what I had to do. But the opponent also played well.

About the ground

– I am, as always, happy that the clay season is ending. It doesn’t matter if I reached the quarter-finals at Roland Garros, like in 2021, or lost here again in the first round. This time, because of the wind and dry court, my mouth was full of clay since the third game. He was wearing socks, sneakers, bags… Maybe someone likes it, but I don’t.

About Wimbledon

– I will be glad if I can play at Wimbledon. I can’t say that I love grass, but last year I made it to two ATP finals.

Opinion

Mats Wilander, ex-1st racket from Sweden, three-time winner of Roland Garros:

– Departure of Daniil Medvedev opens the way to the title of Dane Holger Rune and Norwegian Kasper Ruud. I, as a Scandinavian, certainly want these guys to go as far as possible,” Wilander told Eurosport.