This Roland Garros is not really favorable for the Australian Open champions as both Stanislas Wawrinka and Na Li crashed out in the first round.
We could not expect the 2011 French Open champion (and world no2) to lose from a double specialist., but the Chinese was just unable to beat the world no.103 Kristina Mladenovic. The Frenchwoman was heavily backed by the home crowd to win a tough opening set 7-5. The party looked to be over after Na Li won the second set 6-3: it seemed to be the typical situation of the distracted champion just losing the opening set against the underdog to then go for the kill. To the delight of the crowd the script was rather different. The Chinese hold serve just once in the deciding set to lose 6-1. The final result was 7-5 3-6 6-1.
Mladenovic: I wasn’t happy after the draw
Kristina was absolutely delighted by her performance to comment “After the draw I wasn’t very happy, but I made sure prepared as well as I could was ready to play my best tennis. When I got on court, I thought, ‘I’m at home, be positive.’
I tried to get my forehand into play and attack her forehand whenever I could and it worked well. I’m really glad I could produce such good tennis in front of all these supporters!”
Next vs. Riske
Kristina will now play Alison Riske in the next round.
