ROLAND Garros Day 6 saw the Round of 32 begin, with a couple of fully seeded matches coming into fruition as the competition heats up. Simona Halep registered the quickest win of the day against a sloppy Amanda Anisimova in just 54 minutes, while comparatively 20th seed Maria Sakkari had to battle hard against Italian Martina Trevisan in almost two hours and 40 minutes on court, eventually going down after an excellent first and second set. Meanwhile, young gun Iga Swiatek got the chocolates over an in-form Eugenie Bouchard.

Swiatek has proven in the past that she is more than capable of winning against quality opposition and was no different in this match with the Canadian, reigning supreme for an excellent 6-3 6-2 victory. Hitting 30 winners for just 15 unforced errors, Swiatek commanded proceedings to head through to the fourth round for the second straight year. 

While Bouchard was aggressive and competitive, she could not seem to reel in the 19-year-old who continued to escape notice and cleanly weather the storm despite Bouchard leveling at 2-2 in the second. Swiatek went on to win the remaining four games and indeed the match, relegating Bouchard to just a 14 per cent winning efficiency on her second serve, with the Pole’s consistency good enough to get the job done. Swiatek will have her work cut out for her in the fourth round though when she takes on Halep, who was consistent as ever and did not seem to break a sweat against Anisimova.

Halep exacted revenge against American, Anisimova, after the teen talent knocked her from contention in the 2019 Roland Garros quarter finals. 

“I took the game in my hands,” Halep said. “Last year, I was very far from the court, and I played fairly short so [Anisimova] could play her game. When she has time and she has the ball in the right position, she is very, very dangerous and she plays great. So today I think I did a great job changing a little bit the tactic.”

With just seven unforced errors to Anisimova’s 32, Halep was clinical. In her 17th straight victory on the tour – tracking back to Dubai in February – Halep racked up 77 per cent of points off her first serve to come away with the excellent victory.

Kiki Bertens was similarly impressive in her 58 minute win over Katerina Siniakova, while Elina Svitolina had a much more even battle with fellow seed Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, coming away with a 6-4 7-5 victory. Elise Mertens was not quite so lucky taking on Carolina Garcia, with the French hometown hopeful coming back from a shoddy first set to control proceedings in the second and third, eventually running away with the 1-6 6-4 7-5 victory. Sakkari’s shock loss to Trevisan came through the Italian’s ability to fight back time and time again, with the qualifier much steadier and forcing errors from Sakkari – a whopping 48 to Trevisan’s 30 – with the Greek talent also giving away seven double breaks.

In other matches, Nadia Podoroska defeated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in straight sets, while a tight first set between Barbora Krejcikova and Tsvetana Pironkova saw the Czech narrowly drop the early advantage, before coming back well for the 5-7 6-4 6-3 victory.