After the French Open marathon came the sprints.
Defending champion Iga Swiatek swept into the quarterfinals
at Roland Garros in just 40 minutes after a crushing 6-0, 6-0 win against
Anastasia Potapova.
U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff took only 60 minutes to rout
unseeded Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto 6-1, 6-2.
The 20-year-old American looked set for an even quicker
victory when she led 5-0, but Cocciaretto fought back, getting a hearty cheer
from the crowd after winning the next game.
Swiatek won 48-10 in points without even facing a game point
against her. The match ended when Potapova hit a forehand into the net on the
first match point.
“I was just really focused and in the zone,” Swiatek said.
“It went pretty quickly, pretty weird.”
Their match started at around 11 a.m. on Court Philippe
Chatrier.
That’s just eight hours after men’s defending champion Novak
Djokovic finished his five-set, 4 1/2-hour marathon against Lorenzo Musetti at
just after 3 a.m. in the latest finish in tournament history.
Swiatek said late finishes don’t just end with the match and
are not healthy.
“Usually it takes us, like, four hours to even chill, and
you need to do recovery, media. It’s not like the work ends when the match
point,” she said. “I was always one of the players that said that we should
start a little bit earlier.”
Gauff thinks the issue needs addressing.
“It’s a complicated thing,” she said. “But I definitely
think for the health and safety of the players it would be in the sport’s best
interest to try to avoid those matches finishing, or starting, after a certain
time.”
Gauff says there’s also a fine balance to be struck.
“Obviously I don’t want to complain too much about it
because we are very blessed and privileged to be playing for a lot of money.
There’s people working real jobs under worse conditions for less money and just
trying to get by,” she said. “It’s just tough for me knowing where some of my
family come from and where things are, and I think about the people hearing
this. Yes, if I was a person working, I would be upset to hear, you know,
players complain.”
Potapova attributed her crushing defeat to the constant rain
delays in recent days sapping her energy.
“Unfortunately in the last couple of days I started feeling
not well, eating not well. Last night I did not get an hour of sleep. It’s very
tough to be honest. Especially when you want to play good you have to try to
keep everything inside,” she said. “But unfortunately if you keep it inside it
doesn’t go away, it just keeps growing. The stress inside my body kept growing
and unfortunately today was the day when it exploded.”
Saturday didn’t help much.
“Yesterday I spent all day on site because I had doubles. We
came at 9:00 (a.m.) and at 7:00 pm it got (postponed). I spent all day here
without hitting a ball,” she said. “That’s not the preparation for the fourth
round of a grand slam against the world number one.”
Swiatek remains on course for her third consecutive French
Open title and fourth overall. The top-ranked Pole plays Wimbleon champion
Marketa Vondrousova after the fifth-seeded Czech beat unseeded Serb Olga
Danilovic 6-4, 6-2.
Gauff faces No. 8-seeded Tunisian Ons Jabeur, who advanced
to her second straight French Open quarterfinal after beating unseeded Dane
Clara Tauson 6-4, 6-4.
In men’s fourth-round play, two-time Grand Slam winner
Carlos Alcaraz and 2021 French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to
set up a quarterfinal showdown.
The third-seeded Alcaraz beat No. 21-seeded Canadian Felix
Auger-Aliassime 6-3, 6-3, 6-1.
Auger-Aliassime appeared to struggle with his left leg and
called a trainer at the changeover at 3-2 down in the second set, then left the
court for a medical timeout.
Tsitsipas beat unseeded Italian Matteo Arnaldi 3-6, 7-6 (4),
6-2, 6-2 and the ninth-seeded Greek celebrated enthusiastically with the Court
Suzanne Lenglen crowd.
“Now me and the crowd are on this, so it felt amazing,” said
Tsitsipas, who saved a set point at 5-4 down in the second set. “I felt there
was power within me to turn this game around.”
What about playing Alcaraz?
“He has said in the past that he likes to play against me,”
Tsitsipas said. “I hope he likes it a little bit less.”
Later Sunday, Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner faced
Frenchman Corentin Moutet.