Paris: Romanian third seed Simona Halep and Ukrainian fifth seed Elina Svitolina defeated Spaniard Carla Suarez and Croatia’s Petra Martic respectively to reach the women’s singles quarter-finals of the French Open tennis championships on Monday.
Halep crushed Suarez 6-1, 6-1, in one hour. This is the first time Suarez has lost on clay against Halep, who is keeping her momentum after winning in Madrid and reaching the final in Rome, reports Efe.
Halep will play in the Paris Open quarter-finals for the second time since 2014 when she reached the final but lost to Russia’s Maria Sharapova.
The Romanian will fight for a place in the semi-final on Tuesday against world No.6 Svitolina, who defeated Martic 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.
Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal believes referees should not be too quick to punish players who take longer to prepare between points, the 31-year-old said after receiving a penalty for slow play during his French Open fourth round victory on Sunday.
The nine-times champion beat fellow Spaniard Roberto Bautista to reach the last eight but was twice warned by umpire Carlos Ramos for slow play, before being docked a serve after beaching the mandated 25-second limit.
“If you want to play well, you have to let players breathe a little. We’re not machines that cannot think. That’s my viewpoint,” Nadal told reporters.
“Theoretically, the umpires are here to analyse the match and they are not here to use the stopwatch, otherwise we should have a stopwatch on the court,” Nadal added.
Nadal next faces Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta in the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski stormed into the semifinals of the mixed doubles event of the French Open with a straight-set upset win over the duo of Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig of Croatia.
The Bopanna-Dabrowski pair, seeded seventh, defeated the second-seeded Sania-Dodig pair 6-3 6-4 in the 52-minute quarterfinals contest that involved two Indians. (Reuters)
