French Open 2017- Women's round-up: Halep and Cornet progress in Paris
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ByEurosport
Updated 03/06/2017 at 17:18 GMT
Title contender Simona Halep pulled through against young pretender Daria Kasatkina in a French Open rollercoaster on Saturday, winning 6-0 7-5 after at first threatening to dismantle the 20-year-old Russian.
kasatkina halep
Image credit: Getty Images
The third-seeded Romanian - a beaten finalist in Paris in 2014 - is being tipped as a title favourite after a stellar run-up on clay to this year's tournament.
She romped through the first set of Saturday's third round match in 30 minutes, with an ankle injury she sustained in mid-May giving her no more than a single twinge.
"I felt it a little bit at one backhand, because I turned too much...But doesn't bother me much, so I'm not thinking about it. I can run, I can slide," she told a news conference.
Kasatkina, who in April won her first WTA title in Charleston, initially found the big-game atmosphere on Court Suzanne Lenglen more of a hindrance than a help.
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VIDEO: Simona Halep completes victory
Her groundstrokes tentative and her movements jerky, she fell back on slices and dropshots as her opponent hit powerfully into both corners from the back of the court.
In their only previous tour match, Halep had triumphed in two close sets on the hard courts of Miami in 2016.
Here she won nine of the first 10 games.
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Highlights: Cornet stuns Radwanska
Then the 26th-seeded Russian, the highest-ranked teenager in the world before turning 20 in May, sparked into life.
She won the next four games and held three set points in the 10th game, dominating an opponent who had won in Madrid - one of the two main warm-up tournament for Paris - and finished runner-up in the other in Rome.
But Halep edged through 6-0 7-5, closing out the match with a backhand that stuck the net chord and that Kasatkina failed to return.
"I played really well at the beginning," a relieved and smiling Halep said courtside. "She was coming back really strongly and I think my energy went a bit down... She's a really tough opponent."
Using an armoury of delicate drop shots, Alize Cornet rode a tide of French support into the last-16 of Roland Garros on Saturday with a 6-2 6-1 win over Agnieszka Radwanska.
The Frenchwoman flummoxed the Polish ninth seed with a display that delighted the home crowd, and signalled a palpable belief in her ability to go much further here.
"There are no words," Cornet told the crowd. "It is fantastic to be able to play so well on centre court. There was no better scenario.
"Clay is not my favourite surface but I feel so well on this centre court. I did not let her dictate the points, stayed close to my baseline and tried to mix it up with drop shots. I saw it was working so I continued."
From the start, Cornet's forehand drop shot, so effective in beating 20th seed Barbora Strycova in the last round, was her prime weapon, and she gained the upper hand in early exchanges, as French fans trickled into the Philippe Chatrier showcourt earlier than they otherwise might.
Against a backdrop of roars from the crowd, a fist-pumping Cornet sealed the opening set at the first time of asking when Radwanska fired a forehand wide.
Cornet resumed where she had left off, feathering delightful drop shots over the net to leave Radwanska stranded, but too frequently she let her off the hook with a sloppy double fault.
Radwanska had come from a set down to win her last match, and is no quitter. She chased down a series of smashes from Cornet until the Frenchwoman fired one wide and long then used a drop shot of her own to break at the start of the second set.
But where in the past Cornet has seemed brittle, here the 27-year-old showed real resilience, breaking back and then keeping the pressure up.
Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki beat American Catherine Bellis 6-2 2-6 6-3 in their rain-delayed third round match.
Wozniacki, who is seeded 11th at Roland Garros, plays eighth-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia in the next round.
France's Caroline Garcia battled it out with Taiwan's Hsieh
.Su-wei for more than 2-1/2 hours before finally winning the third-round clash 6-4 4-6 9-7.
Garcia will next meet compatriot Cornet.
Results from the French Open Women's Singles Round 3 matches on Saturday
- 11-Caroline Wozniacki (Denmark) beat Catherine Bellis (U.S.) 6-2 2-6 6-3
- 3-Simona Halep (Romania) beat 26-Daria Kasatkina (Russia) 6-0 7-5
- 28-Caroline Garcia (France) beat Hsieh Su-Wei (Taiwan) 6-4 4-6 9-7
- 21-Carla Suarez Navarro (Spain) beat 14-Elena Vesnina (Russia) 6-4 6-4
- Alize Cornet (France) beat 9-Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) 6-2 6-1
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