World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka storms into French Open quarter-final
PARIS: World number two Aryna Sabalenka pummelled American Emma Navarro 6-2, 6-3 in just over an hour on Monday to march into the French Open quarter-finals with an emphatic performance that kept her on course for her first title in Paris.
Navarro had stunned the Belarusian at Indian Wells in March but Sabalenka broke her to love at the very start and followed that up with another break to race through the first set in 30 minutes.
The Australian Open champion, unbeaten now in 11 straight matches at the majors this year without losing a single set, completely overpowered Navarro with her thundering baseline game and attacked the American’s weak second serve at every opportunity.
Meanwhile World number four Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan eased to a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Ukraine’s Elena Svitolina to reach her second French Open quarter-final.
After a sluggish start with both players dropping serve, Russian-born Rybakina upped her level up and cruised through the first set.
In the second set, the 29-year-old Svitolina was no match again for Rybakina as the 19th-ranked Ukrainian showed signs of fatigue from the start and lacked precision throughout.
Russian-born Frenchwoman Varvara Gracheva rode a huge wave of support from the large partisan crowd but could not prevent a 7-5 6-2 defeat by teenager Mirra Andreeva on Monday.
It was a disappointing end for fans on Court Suzanne Lenglen who had taken to Gracheva after she obtained French nationality last year but they also acknowledged rising Russian 17-year-old Andreeva who produced a mature display.
quarter-final line-up : Swiatek vs Vondrousova, Gauff v Jabeur, Paolini v Rybakina, Andreeva v Sabalenka (Agencies)
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