Another Top Woman Falls at French Open
PARIS - After 20-year-old Garbiñe Muguruza upset No. 1 Serena Williams on Wednesday, she said 'now is the moment' for the next generation in women's tennis.
Ajla Tomljanovic, a 21-year-old Croatian, provided yet another answer to that clarion call on Friday, knocking out No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska in the third round, 6-4, 6-4.
On Tuesday, the No. 2 player, Li Na, lost to 21-year-old Kristina Mladenovic, so the top three seeds are now out of the women's draw. No. 5 Victoria Azarenka is not playing here because of an injury, leaving a wide-open Grand Slam tournament ready to be seized.
Radwanska, seeking her first Grand Slam title, will miss out. She has never had much success at the French Open, her best result being a quarterfinal appearance last year. She played a sloppy first set, her normal bag of tricks rendered futile by careless errors. She took a bathroom break between sets to regroup, but it did not help. Tomljanovic broke her to open the second set.
Radwanska got three break-point opportunities in the eighth game of the set, wasting them all. More and more of her shots landed lazily into the net as Tomljanovic closed out the match.
The 72nd-ranked Tomljanovic, who trained at Chris Evert's tennis academy in Boca Raton, Fla., has said that she considers Evert a second mother. Tomljanovic is having a tournament full of firsts. This is her first appearance in the main draw at Roland Garros. It is also the first time she has advanced past the second round at a Grand Slam event. The victory Friday was her first over a top-25 player.
Tomljanovic was a player on the rise coming into the tournament, however. She entered the top 100 last autumn after starting 2013 ranked 495th on the tour.
Post a Comment for "Another Top Woman Falls at French Open"