After her countrywoman Caroline Garcia discussed how much she disliked the thought of playing on Philippe Chatrier, Alize Cornet is thriving off of the energy the crowd has given the number one French woman. Cornet completed yet another comeback on Chatrier to down Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 to earn her first ever trip into the fourth round at the French Open. Cornet completed her first comeback against Roberta Vinci in the opening round. Lucic-Baroni completed an upset of Simona Halep in straight sets in the previous round to book her spot in this matchup.
The Croat started right where she left off against Halep with a dominant first four games where she broke Cornet twice. In her first opportunity to serve out for the set, Cornet pulled a break back to give some hope she could get back into the set, but she could not get the second break needed to tie the set at five-all to give Lucic-Baroni the first set 6-4. Cornet struggled to win second serve points winning only 30 percent of them which allowed Lucic-Baroni to be aggressive and dictate the points on her terms in the set.
Cornet had to recoup herself in the second knowing she was once again a set away from going home once again. She played a much more poised second set than her opponent who smacked 20 unforced errors in the set and was broken three times. Cornet was pressured in her final service game to take the set being pushed to 30, but her nerves were held to take it 6-3.
The final set was a tight one knowing that a single slipup could have been the difference between going home and into the fourth round. At 3-4 down Cornet was serving and was put under pressure by Lucic-Baroni, but the Croat could not take advantage of her break opportunities as it was all nodded up at four-all. Cornet was offered up the chance to serve out for the match after getting a break for 5-4, but a double fault at 30-all gave Mirjana a second breath of life into the match and would be tied up at 5-all. The third consecutive break of serve was picked up by Cornet to go up 6-5, and she would not look back from there and served it out to advance to the fourth round in Paris for the first time in 11 years. Next up for Cornet is Elina Svitolina who is seeded 19th for a spot in the quarterfinals.