Czech teenager Marketa Vondrousova raced into her first Grand Slam quarter-final at the French Open on Sunday with a 6-2, 6-0 thrashing of Latvian 12th seed Anastasija Sevastova.
The 19-year-old world No 38 dominated from start to finish as Sevastova made 24 unforced errors and managed just seven winners in the 59-minute encounter.
Vondrousova, one of three teenagers alongside Amanda Anisimova and Iga Swiatek in the second week at Roland Garros, will face Croatian 31st seed Petra Martic in the last eight, who also reached her first Grand Slam quarter-final. Martic, who stunned second seed Karolina Pliskova, notched a 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 win over Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi.
British No 1 Johanna Konta continued her comfortable progress through the draw by seeing off Croatia’s Donna Vekic in straight sets to reach her first Grand Slam quarter-final since Wimbledon in 2017. The 26th seed overpowered Vekic 6-2, 6-4 to set up a last-eight tie with either last year’s runner-up Sloane Stephens.
American seventh seed Sloane Stephens reached the Roland Garros quarter-finals for the second successive year with a 6-4, 6-3 win over 2016 champion Garbine Muguruza.
The 26th seed had been a break down early in the first set but recovered and claimed victory on a fifth match point.
“She’s a great player but I played my best tennis today and I’m really happy,” said Vondrousova, who also reached the US Open fourth round last year and won the junior doubles in Paris four years ago.
“It was my first junior Grand Slam so I’m in love with this place and I’m enjoying playing here.”
Martic, 28, had lost all four of her previous last-16 matches at the Majors including twice in Paris.
“I have waited so long for this moment,” said Martic who now has a season-leading 15 wins on clay this year.
“It was full of emotions, we both struggled as we wanted it so bad. I tried to fight. It didn’t look good at times but I stayed in there and it paid off.”
On Sunday, she came back from 0-2 down in the both of the second and third sets to book a quarter-final against 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.
It wasn’t pretty to watch as both players struggled in the 30-degree heat. There were a total of 12 breaks of serve and a combined 88 unforced errors.
Konta hit seven aces and 33 winners past 23rd seed Vekic, who gamely hung in the match on Court Suzanne Lenglen without ever threatening to win, breaking to level at 4-4 in the second set before losing the next two games.
Konta last reached the quarters at a Grand Slam event at Wimbledon two years ago as a run to the semi-finals helped her to a career-high ranking of fourth.
But poor results since have seen her slip down the rankings, and she was only seeded at Roland Garros at all thanks to her runner-up effort at the Italian Open last month.
The 28-year-old had lost in the first round on all of her four previous appearances in the main draw in Paris, but broke that hoodoo against Germany’s Antonia Lottner before also beating Lauren Davis and Viktoria Kuzmova to become the first British woman to reach the fourth round since Anne Hobbs and Jo Durie in 1983.
With AFP inputs
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