DAY four of Roland Garros saw some huge results, with the biggest news to come out of the day the withdrawal from Serena Williams, bowing out to Tsvetana Pironkova prior to the match starting, citing an Achilles injury and more than likely now not playing another tournament in 2020. As for other top 10 seed hopes, Simona Halep, Elina Svitolina and Kiki Bertens all continued their winning ways against unseeded opposition, while Victoria Azarenka’s excellent recent form has come to an end with her Roland Garros hopes cut short by Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in straight sets.

Unfortunately for Belarusian hope Azarenka, from the get-go it was all the way of Schmiedlova who immediately broke Azarenka’s serve and held to be 2-0 up early, before fighting through all of the 10th seeds efforts to win the last three games to take out the first set in 52 minutes. While Azarenka had a much better start to the second, seeing neither player able to break the opposition’s serve at 2-2, it was Schmiedlova that broke first to win the remainder of the set with a 69 per cent winning rate off her first serve and 57 off the second. Azarenka notched up a whopping 38 unforced errors, hitting one more winner but winning 18 points less than Schmiedlova overall in the 6-2 6-2 battle.

“I think for me it’s very important to move well and to not make a lot of unforced errors, just to put everything in, run a lot,” Schmiedlova said post-match. “That’s my game, but I also need to play a little bit more aggressive, brave in the difficult moments.

“That was very difficult for me before because I was playing too defensive. “Now I’m trying to play a little bit more offensive. I’m glad that it worked today.

“I’m extremely happy. Especially when I won against such great players, I have big respect for both of them (Azarenka and Venus Williams in the opening round). I never played against Vika before… “I think she’s great player. She played really well in US Open. I was (a) little bit scared before the match. But I started well, and I’m really happy how I managed to play all match.” 

Halep was fairly convincing in victory against Romanian compatriot Irina-Camelia Begu for a 6-3 6-4 win in 83 minutes, while Svitolina survived a shock 0-6 second set to record a 6-3 0-6 6-2 victory over Renata Zarazua. Other seeds to head through to the third round were Amanda Anisimova, who came away with a 57 minute 6-2 6-0 victory over countrywoman Bernarda Pera, Elise Mertens and Maria Sakkari, with the latter two overcoming tough efforts for eventual victories, while Kazakh Yulia Putintseva was not so lucky, going down in three sets to Nadia Podoroska.

Bertens endured a tough challenge from Sara Errani, with the Italian unwilling to back down taking the match to over three hours in length credit to tiebreakers in the first and third sets. While Bertens was relieved to come away with the 7-6 6-3 9-7 victory, the Dutch fifth seed told media post-match “I kept on fighting and I still don’t know how I did manage to get the win” in a gruelling battle.

“It was a roller coaster, to be honest,” Bertens said. “Physically I didn’t feel great. I was cramping, I think everyone could really see that. But it was weird because I didn’t feel really tired but I was sweating a lot, I was cold. So I don’t know what it really was, maybe a little bit of tension of course also in the body. 

“It was tough because of course you want to play more aggressive, but it’s really tough for me to do this on this court at this point,” Bertens said. “So then you’re a little bit like struggling, like what should I do and then she’s reading the game of course really well. 

“So there was a lot of drop shots, a lot of running, a lot of breaks of serve, because I also felt like sometimes when I really hit a good shot she only came with a better response. So it was really trying to find a solution out there.”

Bertens takes on Katerina Siniakova in the third round after the Czech reigned supreme over compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in 77 minutes. The second all-Czech battle of the day saw 32nd seed Barbora Strycova go down to Barbora Krejcikova in a huge three-setter, with the latter weathering the storm for the 6-4 3-6 6-3 victory. Meanwhile, Australians Astra Sharma and Daria Gavrilova were not so lucky after their opening round wins, with Sharma dealt a tough hand in seed Russia Ekaterina Alexandrova and Gavrilova outclassed by Eugenie Bouchard after winning the first set tiebreaker. Carolina Garcia was too strong against Aliaksandra Sasnovich, steaking momentum to fly through the second set after a tight 7-6 start.

While young guns continue to put on a show, just one of Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek managed to head to the third round, with Gauff putting on an exciting effort against Martina Trevisan but ultimately coming off second best after a sloppy second set for the 4-6 6-2 7-5 result, while Swiatek powered through the first set against Hsieh Su-wei to record a 6-1 6-4 victory.