Pritha Sarkar
Source : Indianexpress
A new name will be engraved on the Suzanne Lenglen trophy after the last remaining champion, China’s Li Na, was felled in the fourth round of the French Open by a bespectacled 142nd ranked qualifier better known as a doubles specialist.
Li had captured the hearts of more than a billion fans in her homeland a year ago after becoming the first player from an Asian nation to win a singles Grand Slam crown but joy turned to despair on Monday as she was dethroned with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 humbling by Kazhak Yaroslava Shvedova.
Shvedova, who now stands one match away from becoming the first qualifier to reach the last four in Paris, said she had only one strategy for the match: “Fight, fight, fight, fight”.
Maria Sharapova, bidding for a first French Open title and the World No.1 ranking, staggered into the quarter-finals after an ugly 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 win over Klara Zakopalova in a three-hour battle played in swirling winds.
Holding serve became a major problem as the Philippe Chatrier Court turned into a dust bowl with a total of 21 games, 17 of them in the first two sets, going against the serve.
Flummoxed by the unruly playing conditions, Sharapova’s anger boiled over at 1-1 in the second set when she felt her Czech opponent was incorrectly awarded a point. “How can you call it out if you can’t show me the mark?” a fuming Sharapova quizzed umpire Julie Minori Kjendlie as whistles and jeers rang around the arena.
No amount of arguing or icy stares from Sharapova would change Kjendlie’s mind and 10 games later, the Russian was at it again after she called a ball out which prompted Zakopalova to stop playing. It was promptly awarded to the Czech.
Zakopalova, ranked 44th, went on to win the set but Sharapova still completed a messy victory. As she walked off court after three hours 11 minutes – which was 17 minutes longer than her first three matches combined — Sharapova was greeted with more whistles.
Except this time they were not as complimentary.
A band apart
Meanwhile, Nicolas Almagro booked a quarter-final date with the man he calls the Boss — also known as Rafa Nadal — on a day when Spaniards showed why the nation has ruled Roland Garros for most of the last decade.
Spanish king Juan Carlos’s subjects have won eight of the last 10 men’s titles in Paris and on Monday they showed no signs of relinquishing their hold as Nadal, Almagro and David Ferrer mercilessly froze out their opponents at a chilly, blustery and drizzly French Open.
There are only three players left in the men’s draw yet to drop a set at Roland Garros — and they are all Spaniards.
Nadal moved ominously closer to a record seventh title following a 6-2, 6-0, 6-0 win over overwhelmed Argentine Juan Monaco.
Three of the four quarter-final spots in the bottom half of the draw have been filled by Spaniards, with British fourth seed Andy Murray completing the line-up after ending the hopes of flamboyant Frenchman Richard Gasquet in four sets.
Four different nations are represented in the top half of the draw, however, as Argentine ninth seed Juan Martin Del Potro and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga finally completed their fourth-round matches that were interrupted by bad light on Sunday.
Former US Open champion Del Potro had to head off to bed on Sunday leading two-sets-to-one and woke up to complete a 7-6, 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 win over Czech seventh seed Tomas Berdych to set up a date with Swiss third seed Roger Federer.
Tsonga almost let a 4-2 final set lead he held overnight slip through his fingers before he fell on one knee, resting his head on his racket in relief, after seeing off Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4, 7-6, 3-6, 3-6, 6-4.
Bhupathi-Sania enter semis
Despite crashing out in women’s and men’s doubles respectively, Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi inched towards their second Grand Slam title together as they progressed to the mixed doubles semifinals of the French Open after shocking second seeds Czech Republic’s Kveta Peschke and American Mike Bryan on Monday.
The seventh seed Indian pair breezed past their opponents 6-2 6-3 in just under an hour in the quarter-finals of the clay court Major.
The Indians saved all the four breakpoints they faced in the match and in turn converted four of the five break chances they got. In a near perfect way, Bhupathi-Mirza made only one unforced error in the match. The Indian duo, winners of the 2010 Australian Open, now await the winner of the other quarter-final match between the pairs of Kazakhstan’s Galina Voskoboeva and Italian Daniele Bracciali and Spaniard Nuria Llagostera and Austrian Oliver Marach. The Kazakh-Italian team are seeded below Bhupathi-Mirza and beat the pair of Gazelle Dulko and Eduardo Schwank in their prequarters who had earlier upset top seeds Serena Williams and Bob Bryan.
Bhupathi-Mirza’s other likely opponent, Llagostera and Marach though unseeded, have also shown good potential. The wild card entrants upset third seeds Serbian Nenad Zimonijic and Slovakian Srebotnik in straigh sets.
