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Post by Admin on Oct 1, 2020 5:38:52 GMT
Former Top 30 player Anna Karolina Schmiedlova's resurgence continued at the French Open on Wednesday as the Slovak dispatched No.10 seed Victoria Azarenka in straight sets to reach the third round, 6-2, 6-2.
The 26-year-old arrived in Paris on a 13-match losing streak in Grand Slam main draws dating back over five years, but earned a spot in the round of 32 at a major for the third time in her career, and second time in Paris.
"I'm extremely happy because it's my favorite Grand Slam and favorite tournament of the year. I always play good here. I had many chances in last couple of years. I had match points or really close matches. I always play good here, just didn't close it," Schmiedlova said after the victory.
"I always thought that one year it has to come. I'm happy that this year I am in the third round. I'm extremely happy. Especially when I won against such great players, I have big respect for both of them. I never played against Vika before. I watch her many times in the TV, even when I was not on the tour. When I was younger, I watched many of her matches.
"I think she's great player. She played really well in US Open. I was little bit scared before the match. But I started well, and I'm really happy how I managed to play all match."
Racking up 36 unforced errors over the course of one hour and 42 minutes, Azarenka lost serve in the first game of the match and hardly led again from there - unable to string together momentum for an extended period over the course of the contest.
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Post by Admin on Oct 2, 2020 0:20:00 GMT
Reigning Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin continued showing off her fighting spirit at the French Open, rallying from a set down to defeat Ana Bogdan, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
"During the match I just try to put the emotions aside," Kenin said in post-match press. "I don't have time to think about my emotions. I have to play one point at a time.
"These two matches have been quite tough. I felt like I couldn't find my rhythm in both of them and found a way at the end, so I'll take it."
The No.4 seed was three games from defeat in the second set, but reeled off nine of the final 11 games of the match to outlast the unseeded Romanian after one hour and 51 minutes beneath the Court Philippe-Chatrier roof.
Bogdan won their only previous meeting back in 2018, in the final round of Coupe Rogers qualifying; since then, Kenin has risen among the game's best with a run to the 2019 French Open fourth round - shocking 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams en route - and a maiden major title in Melbourne back in January.
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Post by Admin on Oct 4, 2020 20:37:01 GMT
After many words about her private life, we can finally talk about Eugenie Bouchard's tennis. Already recently the Canadian came back to a good level with the final at the Istanbul Open and now, despite an ups and downs tennis, Eugenie has qualified for the third round of the Roland Garros 2020, where she lostv against Iga Swiatek. The young Polish player overtook the Canadian in straight sets, with the final score of 6-3 6-2, at the end of a dominated and well played match, but which does not diminish the last good period of Bouchard, which she is recovering, finally, good tennis and good psycho-physical strength: a good sign for the next season and for what remains of 2020. The words of Eugenie Bouchard on the pandemic Here are the words of the Canadian tennis player in the press conference: "I am very proud to have this possibility, especially in a season where we had very few tournaments. Considering my ranking there are few events I can participate in and I am grateful to Roland Garros for the wild card it has granted me. We have to thank the organizers for the effort they put into carrying the tournament forward, we are lucky enough to be able to do our job. Since we have few chances, I will always try to give everything in every match. Gil Reyes? He is definitely one of my favorite people on this planet. He is special and I have to thank him for everything. I am grateful for his help, I have known him for over ten years and yet I only started working with him in October. She has a lot of faith in me and has helped me believe in myself. The match against Gavrilova? It was a tough challenge, I knew she was strong and responded blow for blow. I am proud to have passed this test especially for how the comeback took place. In the past I went through difficult times but I learned to believe in myself and think more deeply, now I have greater awareness of my abilities. "Bouchard also said about the quarantine: "The strangest thing that happened to me in these four months and half was that I did not take the plane, it's crazy. The first plane I took was to go to Charleston for a performance but I eventually missed my flight. The last thing I wanted was to miss that plane after so many months off. However, we must be very careful and nobody has to complain about this situation "
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Post by Admin on Oct 7, 2020 5:59:55 GMT
There could be a case of match-fixing at Roland Garros. According to what was published by the German website Welt, the French police is currently investigating about a possible combined tennis match played during this latest edition of the French Major.
The match currently under investigation is from the women's doubles draw and, more specifically, it's a first-round match played between the Romanian duo Andreea Mitu and Patricia Maria Tig on one hand and the American Madison Brengle paired with Russian Yana Sizikova on the other hand.
The Romanian duo won the match with a straight sets win but something seemed particularly suspicious. Specifically, the investigators believe, thanks to the information collected by the betting companies, that there was a game during the second set on which unexpected streams of bets were recorded.
According to the investigations, the anomalous bet would have focused on the fifth game of the second set. On that occasion, the Russian Sizikova was serving and she got herself broken with two double faults in a short time and missed a couple of shots.
All seemed to be happening very quick and sounded particularly odd. Further investigations are now being held and will helep clarify if and to what extent the tennis players on the field were involved in the alleged match-fixing.
The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU), which deals with match fixing cases, declined to release any comment on the rumors published by the WELT site. The Sportradar company, which monitors the betting market for tennis associations, did not even want to comment on the case regarding the ongoing investigations.
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Post by Admin on Oct 12, 2020 7:29:23 GMT
One hundred wins. Thirteen titles. And a 26-0 record when he reaches the semi-finals. Rafael Nadal proved on Sunday that he still owns Roland Garros. In a year when nothing has been normal, it seemed fitting that Djokovic-Nadal LVI took place in the final of Roland Garros, indoors, on October 10, in front of 1,000 bundled up fans in masks.
Djokovic held a narrow 29-26 ATP Head2Head edge coming into the match, but in major finals, they were even at four wins each. With heavy conditions and balls not to his liking, Nadal’s shots were reportedly jumping three inches lower than usual during the tournament. But none of his victims in the run-up to the final were playing a sad violin for him, as the Mallorcan rampaged through his half of the draw without dropping a set.
And as Nadal bageled Djokovic in the first set, one couldn’t help but wonder if all the supposedly good reasons why this would be the year where Rafa might finally lose a Roland Garros final — the balls, the weather, the closed roof, the lack of preparation — were essentially nonsense. Come on guys, it’s still Nadal at Roland Garros, and he’s still a serial killer on clay at any time of year, in any conditions.
Djokovic had never been bageled in a major final—in fact, it was Nadal who had last whitewashed him in a set in the final of Rome last year. It took the Serb 54 minutes to win a game. After 12 French titles and 99 wins, could anyone have predicted that Nadal was saving perhaps his finest performance for win No. 100? But there he was, looking resplendent in baby blue, dancing around his backhand on the red dirt as though he was still a fresh-faced 19-year-old, blasting those lethal, inside out forehands that have given a generation of players nightmares.
You May Also Like: Nadal Clinches Historic 13th Roland Garros Title, Ties Grand Slams Record Perhaps the scariest thing for every other player on the Tour to contemplate is that on Sunday on the red clay in Paris, Nadal looked better than ever at age 34 as he dismantled his great rival Novak Djokovic, 6-0, 6-2, 7-5, becoming the first man in the Open Era to win four majors without dropping a set. His form was so sublime that we must now consider the possibility that, if he wants to, the swashbuckling Mallorcan could win his favourite tournament a few more times, perhaps more!
When he finally calls it a career, how many Roland Garros titles will he own? No one in the history of the sport has won 13 times at the same tournament, but now 15 or more Roland Garros title runs doesn’t seem out of the question for the Spaniard. As long as his name appears on the draw sheet at this tournament, he’ll be the favourite. As he said on court after the match, “Roland Garros means everything to me, I’ve spent the most important moments of my tennis career here.”
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