After two hours and seventeen minutes of tennis, the 1-6, 6-4 and 7-5 final score was on Court Philippe Chatrier’s board. Garcia could only serve the match at her sixth match point.
It was the third game between 24-year-old Mertens and 26-year-old Garcia. The Frenchwoman had also won the two previous meetings, last year in the Fed Cup and in 2017 in Beijing.
Mertens nevertheless started her party furiously. In record time the 1-6 was on the scoreboard in the first set. But Garcia shook a real comeback off her wrists.
Although that did not happen without resistance. The Frenchwoman played erratic, but wrote the second set to her name. Also in the third set it did not go smoothly for Garcia, who seemed to suffer from nerves. Mertens almost fought his way to a tiebreaker, but that just didn’t work out. She stranded with the eighth finals in sight.
In her next match, Garcia will face Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (WTA 5). The third seed passed the Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova (WTA 31) in two sets.
For Elise Mertens it stays that way at one place in the last sixteen in Paris. Two years ago she lost in the eighth finals to Simona Halep. The third round was also the final stage last year and in 2017.
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Kirsten Flipkens has not been able to qualify for the eighth finals of the doubles at Roland Garros.
In the second round, she lost to Russian Anastasija Pavlyuchenkova against Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk and Belarusian Aljaksandra Sasnovich.
It became 6-3, 4-6 and 6-2 after two hours and eight minutes of playing time. In the singles tournament, Kirsten Flipkens (WTA 80) was whipped in the first round by the Kazakh Yoelija Poetintseva (WTA 27).
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