French Open: Williams sisters slip on clay, Sharapova eases into round 3
Paris: Defending champion and world number one Serena Williams was knocked out of the French Open by Spain’s Garbine Muguruza on Wednesday as the American star stumbled to her second worst Grand Slam defeat.
The top seed lost 2-6, 2-6 in the second round to the world number 35 with her defeat coming just an hour after sister Venus also went out, 6-2, 3-6, 4-6 to Slovak teenager Anna Schmiedlova.
It was the earliest exit for a defending champion at Roland Garros since 2005 when Anastasia Myskina of Russia went out in the first round.
With Li Na losing in the first round on Tuesday, Serena’s defeat marks the first time in the Open Era that the top two seeds had failed to get to the third round at a major. Wednesday’s defeat was Serena’s worst at a Grand Slam in terms of games won and was only the second time she had been beaten at a major in the round of 64. The last time that happened was on her debut at the 1998 Australian Open.
“Nothing worked today,” said 17-time major winner Serena who hit just eight winners and a huge 29 unforced errors with five double faults. “I just couldn’t serve. But you can’t be on form every day. I hate to be off at a Grand Slam but it happens, it’s not the end of the world.
“I will have to work five times as hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” added the 32-year-old American who suffered her only Grand Slam first round loss in Paris in 2012.
The young Spaniard was over-joyed by her performance. “Today’s a great day. I really didn’t expect that but I’m really happy. I had to be aggressive and I did it well,” Muguruza said.
Serena’s defeat was good news for Maria Sharapova who is now the overwhelming title favourite with second seed Li losing 24 hours earlier. The Williams sisters had been scheduled to meet in the third round but their back-to-back exits represented just the fourth time they had lost on the same day at a major.
Instead the tournament will get Muguruza against Schmiedlova, the 19-year-old Slovak who ended 32-year-old Venus’s 17th French Open with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win. Schmiedlova was just a month old when the American made her professional debut back in 1994.
Meanwhile, sixth seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi overcame a stiff challenge from Divij Sharan and Rameez Junaid in their men’s doubles first round match. The ‘Indo-Pak Express’ scraped past India’s Sharan and Australian Junaid 7-5, 6-7 (4), 7-5 in a little over two hours.
Sharapova eases into the third round:
Maria Sharapova advanced to the third round at the French Open by beating Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria 7-5, 6-2 Wednesday.
Sharapova won the French Open title two years ago and lost to Serena Williams in last year's final.
With Williams losing earlier Wednesday, the seventh-seeded Sharapova takes over as the main favorite at Roland Garros.
