Roland-Garros: Kenin upsets home favourite Garcia to reach third round

Former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin played the spoiler role for French hopes of a women’s singles champion as the 25-year-old knocked out Caroline Garcia, the No 21 seed, 6-3, 6-3 at Roland-Garros on Wednesday afternoon.

Kenin, ranked No 56 and a runner-up at the French Open in 2020, will play the winner of the match between Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, the No 9 seed, and Dane Clara Tauson next.

The American defeated German Laura Siegemund (4-6, 6-2, 6-2) in the previous round. Kenin improved to 3-0 life time against Garcia with this win, with all of those coming in straight sets.

“I feel like I’m definitely more fitter, doing the right things from my end; fitness, diet, everything” – Kenin

Coming into the tournament with a 4-13 record on the tour, Kenin now has won back-to-back matches in the same tournament for only the second time in her career.

“I won my first match in Lleida (over Irene Burillo Escorihuela),” Kenin said as quoted by the WTA Tour. “I was on a nine-match losing streak this year. So I felt like getting that win, it obviously helped me for Rome, and then winning those two rounds there gave me confidence. Then even though Strasbourg wasn’t the best, but I’m glad that it’s coming together here because, obviously, this is the place where you want everything to come together.”

“Even at the start of the year, I wasn’t playing as I am playing right now. I feel like I’m definitely more fitter, doing the right things from my end; fitness, diet, everything. Obviously it’s paying off.”

In the previous round, Garcia, ranked No 23, needed three sets to beat German qualifier Eva Lys (4-6, 7-5, 6-2). The Frenchwoman has not had her best results in her home slam — reaching the second week only thrice in 14 appearances — with a quarter-final in 2017 being her best finish.

Paris (Grand Slam), other second-round matches (Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 53,478,000):

• Moyuka Uchijima vs. Aryna Sabalenka
• Paula Badosa vs. Yulia Putintseva
• Sara Errani vs. Emma Navarro
• Madison Keys vs. Mayar Sherif
• Peyton Stearns vs. Daria Kasatkina
• Victoria Azarenka vs. Mirra Andreeva
• Irina-Camelia Begu vs. Linda Noskova
• Varvara Gracheva vs. Bernarda Pera
• Arantxa Rus vs. Elena Rybakina
• Elise Mertens vs. Petra Martic
• Ana Bogdan vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
• Elina Svitolina vs. Diane Parry
• Hailey Baptiste vs. Jasmine Paolini
• Anna Kalinskaya vs. Bianca Andreescu
• Elina Avanesyan vs. Anna Blinkova
• Qinwen Zheng vs. Tamara Korpatsch
• Liudmila Samsonova vs. Amanda Anisimova
• Coco Gauff vs. Tamara Zidansek
• Cristina Bucsa vs. Elisabetta Cocciaretto
• Iga Swiatek vs. Naomi Osaka
• Xinyu Wang vs. Viktoriya Tomova
• Donna Vekic vs. Marta Kostyuk
• Danielle Collins vs. Olga Danilovic
• Camila Osorio vs. Ons Jabeur
• Katerina Siniakova vs. Chloe Paquet
• Jelena Ostapenko vs. Clara Tauson
• Yafan Wang vs. Dayana Yastremska
• Viktorija Golubic vs. Anastasia Potapova
• Leylah Fernandez vs. Xiyu Wang
• Katie Volynets vs. Marketa Vondrousova
• Jana Fett vs. Marie Bouzkova