Today has started as the day of upsets on Court Suzanne Lenglen. After the early defeat of eighth seed Milos Raonic, knocked out of the tournament by Albert Ramos-Viñolas in straight sets, another seeded player is forced to leave the competition.
It’s Shelby Rogers who signed the second upset of the day, by defeating 25th seed Irina-Camelia Begu in straight sets. Begu became the third seed knocked out of the French Open by the young American, as she successfully got rid of 17th seed Karolina Pliskova in the first round, and then defeated 10th seed Petra Kvitova in the third, in one of the major upsets of the tournament so far.
The Romanian probably suffered the fatigue from her previous tough matches, where she has always been forced to the third set to finally achieve the victory; nevertheless, she could still claim a rewarding clay season, with two quarterfinals and a semifinal achieved, and with a fourth round reached at the French Open for the first time in career.
An Early Break Granted Rogers The First Set
It’s the Romanian who took an early control of the match, easily holding her serve, and taking advantage from Rogers’s slow start to immediately try to take the lead. The American started to play more aggressive, forcing the 25-year-old to commit errors and eventually managing to hold.
The American kept her aggressive play in the following games and rushed ahead to take her first break of the set, which consolidated right away. The 23-year-old kept putting pressure in her service games, leaving few chances to her opponent to fight back.
The Romanian ended the set in the worst way possible, by hitting a double fault on the first set point; Rogers won the first set with a 6-3 scoreline.
Rogers Chokes Off Begu’s Attempts To Complete A Comeback
Begu rushed ahead right from the start of the second set, breaking Rogers’s serve to love and immediately taking the lead. She still struggled to find consistency on her own serve, as she granted two chances to break back to her opponent, before managing to consolidate her advantage.
Unwilling to stay behind, the American started to play aggressively again, holding her serve to love and taking advantage of too many errors from the Romanian, to immediately level to a 2-2 scoreline.
From then on, it’s Rogers who lead the game; the latest attempt from Begu to stay in the match came in the seventh game; after losing her serve again, the Romanian started to attack her opponent’s serve and managed to take the break right back.
Begu eventually surrendered while serving to stay in the set. The Romanian again hit too many errors, and Rogers needed only one match point to finally grab a 6-3, 6-4 victory after an hour and 19 minutes of play.
Rogers To Meet Muguruza
Shelby Rogers will play fourth seed Garbiñe Muguruza in the quarterfinals. It will be the pair’s first career meeting. The Spaniard also performed her own dream run back in 2014, where she defeated defending champion and first seed Serena Williams in the second round and reached the quarterfinals in a major for the first time.