Jessica Pegula’s hopes of winning a Grand Slam trophy were dashed after she lost to Elise Mertens 6-1, 6-3 in the third round of the French Open. Mertens, a former world No. 1 in doubles and currently ranked 28th, used her complete range of shots to outmaneuver her opponent. Pegula, ranked world No. 3, was unable to respond to Mertens’ versatile game. Mertens led the first set in just 26 minutes, racing to a 5-0 lead and claiming the set. Pegula broke Mertens early in the second set, but Mertens responded in the next game. Pegula had another rare break opportunity at 3-2, but then sank three consecutive backhands into the net. Mertens took advantage of Pegula’s low first-serve percentage to break her again for a 5-3 lead, leaving the frustrated American to shake her head and look at her coaching box for any help. Pegula’s ordeal was over after 82 minutes with her 28th unforced error.
Seeded players face early exits
With Pegula joining No. 5 Caroline Garcia, No. 8 Maria Sakkari, and No. 10 Petra Kvitova on the sidelines, four of the top 10 women’s seeds have already been eliminated from the French Open. This is part of a pattern this year at Roland Garros: only 12 seeds made it through two rounds, the fewest in Paris since the field expanded to 32 seeds in 2002. No. 9 Daria Kasatkina, who defeated Peyton Stearns 6-0, 6-1 in just under an hour, made light work of another American. Stearns, a big hitter who defeated 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in the second round, simply could not find her targets on a day with a breeze at about 10 mph and a chill in the low 60s Fahrenheit. More than half of Kasatkina’s 59 points came via the 30 unforced errors by Stearns. One seeded player who had no trouble Friday was No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who defeated Kamilla Rakhimova 6-2, 6-2 to reach the fourth round. Sabalenka broke twice in the opening set and raced to a 3-0 lead in the second on a sunbathed Court Philippe Chatrier to set up a meeting with American Sloane Stephens or Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan.
In a rematch of last week’s final in Strasbourg, Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina once again got the better of Anna Blinkova, advancing to the fourth round after recovering from a set down to win 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 over the Russian player. Svitolina, a three-time French Open quarterfinalist, next faces Kasatkina.
Sabalenka moved past the third round after losing at that stage in the past three French Open tournaments. After her win on Friday, she skipped the traditional post-match news conference, citing mental health reasons and saying she did not feel safe while being asked about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine following her win on Wednesday.
Pegula will now attempt to chase a doubles title alongside 19-year-old Coco Gauff, whose third-round match in singles comes Saturday against 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva. A year ago, Gauff was the runner-up in singles at the French Open and made it to the final in doubles with Pegula. Pegula said, “Obviously still a good chance to hopefully kind of go farther than we did last year, so definitely I’m going to be focusing on that now.” Mertens will attempt to make it beyond the fourth round in Paris for the first time when she plays Sunday against 2021 French Open runner-up Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who got off to a slow start before finishing strong to down No. 24 Anastasia Potapova 4-6, 6-3, 6-0.
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