THE Roland Garros Round of 16 started with a bang, with tournament favourite and top seed Simona Halep knocked out in straight sets by 19-year-old Iga Swiatek. Fifth seed Kiki Bertens also went down in just over 90 minutes on court, while Elina Svitolina is now the top seed left in the tournament after racing through her own match against hometown hope, Carolina Garcia. Fortunately for Australian fans, world number one Ash Barty is no longer at risk of losing top spot on the rankings now that Halep is out of the running.

Swiatek heads into her first career grand slam quarter final with this win over Halep, completing the 6-1 6-2 victory in just 68 minutes for an outstanding victory over the top seed. Swiatek was clinical, winning 81 per cent of her first serve points compared to Halep’s 53 per cent and hitting 30 winners to the Romanian’s 12.

It was the 24-minute first set that really set the tone, with the teenaged Pole shocking herself by her own dominance and defeating the Romanian who had won their only prior battle at the 2019 Roland Garros and was on a 17-match winning streak.

“I don’t know what happened! I was playing perfectly. I was so focused for the whole match, and even I’m surprised I can do that,” Swiatek said. “I remembered that last year she beat me but lost against Amanda Anisimova in the next round. “I thought we could do the same thing this year but just change the names around.”

While Swiatek shone bright, Halep fought hard but to no avail, giving full credit to the young gun post-match. 

“All the credit to her, she played unbelievable today and she was everywhere and she hit all the balls in very strong, very powerful,” Halep said. “I knew she was going to be aggressive.

“I knew that she’s playing this way. “Today it worked really well for her, every ball. “She was very confident, she was powerful, so it was a great match for her.

“For sure I could have done something different, like playing more balls in and trying to push her back, but it’s all I had today and, yeah, I couldn’t make something better. “She was really dominating the match and was really aggressive.”

Italian qualifier Martina Trevisan was similarly dominant, taking down Bertens in an excellent 6-4 6-4 effort. Ranked at 159th in the world, Trevisan disposed of Bertens in an hour and 35 minutes, marginally winning more off her service games (70 per cent compared to 61 per cent) and hitting nine more winners for five less unforced errors.

“I think today the intensity of my play, it was really good,” said Trevisan post-match. “I was really aggressive. So yeah, maybe it’s one of the best matches I played here in Paris.” 

“But I think the important thing is always my mentality, because match after match I got more confidence… So when I enter on the court, I enter to win the match without fail.”

Svitolina came away with the quickest win of the day over Garcia, coming away with the 6-1 6-3 victory in just 63 minutes. With a less than great record against Garcia in the past, Svitolina came out flying and controlled proceedings throughout in a convincing effort. She will take on Argentinian qualifier Nadia Podoroska in the quarter finals, after the world number 131 defeated Czech Barbora Krejcikova in the longest match of the day, coming in at two hours and nine minutes.

A slow start from Podoroska saw her Czech opposition control most of the early proceedings, before an excellent second and third set saw the Argentinian make her way through to her maiden grand slam quarter finals berth. But despite her less than impressive start and whopping 43 unforced errors throughout, Podoroska had a point to prove and came away with 36 winners and a 75 per cent first serve ratio that saw her sneak over the line stats-wise, but much clearer  victory on the board with the 2-6 6-2 6-3 scoreline.