All four remaining seeded players advanced to the semifinals of the French Open in the girls’ singles competition on Friday. For the most part, the seeds were unchallenged in the quarterfinal matches, with only one being pushed to a deciding set. Here’s what happened in the girls’ singles quarterfinals on Friday.
Results
Top seed Olesya Pervushina continued her strong run in Paris with another blowout win, this time a 6-1, 6-1 route of Romanian qualifier Ioana Minca. Pervushina was in control throughout the opening set, breaking serve twice while only losing four points on her first serve. She faced a little more resistance in the second set, with Minca managing to score a break of her own. However, the Romanian was unable to hold serve and was broken four times, only winning five points on her own serve in total in the second set.
Pervushina’s semifinal opponent with be 12th seed Rebeka Masarova of Switzerland, who also advanced in straight sets on Friday. The Swiss defeated Ukrainian Katarina Zavatska 6-3, 6-2 in the quarterfinals to advance. Masarova poured pressure on her opponents serve in the opening set, winning more than 50 percent of her return points and was rewarded with a pair of breaks, which was enough even though Zavatska scored a break of her own. The Swiss was even stronger in the second set, breaking three times to wrap up the victory.
Second seed Amanda Anisimova had a nearly identical match to that of Pervushina, cruising to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over the last Frenchwoman in the draw, Emmanuelle Salas. Anisimova dominated on her return, breaking Salas in all of the Frenchwoman’s service games in the opening set, breaking three times. Salas’ lone game in that frame was a break. She only won seven points on her own serve in the first. While the American continued to return well in the second, she buckled down on serve and did not face a break point, while grabbing three more breaks of her own to seal the easy victory.
The toughest match of the day saw fourth seed Anastasia Potapova go the distance against Polish qualifier Iga Swiatek. After dropping the opening set, fourth seed Potapova battled back to take the last two, eventually emerging victorious 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. In a wild opening set, it was Swiatek who ended up with the slight advantage, scoring three breaks to the Russian’s two. But Potapova settled down in the second, once again breaking twice, but this time limiting the Pole to only one break. Swiatek started to run out of gas the in the decider, as all the momentum swung to Potapova, who cruised through the deciding set and into the semifinals.
The semifinals will take place tomorrow, with Pervushina taking on Masarova, while Anisimova faces off with Potapova.