ESPN News Services Jun 2, 2023 07:42 ET3 minutes read
World No. 3 Jessica Pegula’s hopes of a Grand Slam trophy were dashed after a 6-1, 6-3 loss to Belgium’s Elise Mertens in the third round of the French Open on Friday.
Pegula, 29, had no answer to Mertens’ versatile game. A former world No. 1 in doubles, Mertens used her full arsenal of shots, including sliced forehands, drop shots, lobs and deep groundstrokes, to maneuver her opponent around and push her back.
Mertens, in 28th place, was nearly flawless at the start, beating the American twice in a row and causing Pegula to throw down her racquet. Mertens took a 5-0 lead and secured the first set in just 26 minutes.
“I feel like I still played good points,” said Pegula. “Elise was just really tough, didn’t make a lot of mistakes and forced me to play every single ball. And with the windy conditions, I felt like she definitely benefited from it.”
Pegula, who advanced to the third round after Camila Giorgi was eliminated after the first set, beat Mertens early in the second set but the Belgian player responded in the next game.
With the score 3-2, Pegula created another rare break chance, but then sank three backhands in a row into the net.
Mertens, 27, took advantage of Pegula’s low rate on the first serve to break her again and take a 5-3 lead, leaving the frustrated American shaking her head and looking to her coaching box for help.
Her ordeal ended after 82 minutes with her 28th unforced error.
Mertens will try to get past the fourth round in Paris for the first time when she takes on 2021 French Open runner-up Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Sunday, who got off to a slow start before ending strong and No. 24 Anastasia Potapova with 4-6 defeated , 6-3, 6-0.
No.9 Daria Kasatkina made easy work of Peyton Stearns, another USA, to claim a 6-0, 6-1 win in just under an hour.
Stearns, a heavy hitter who defeated 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in the second round, just couldn’t do her goals on a day with a breeze of about 10mph and a low 60F cold find.
More than half of Kasatkina’s 59 points came from Stearns’ 30 unforced errors.
Pegula had similar problems and made 28 unforced errors while Mertens only made 13.
Kasatkina will face Russia’s compatriot Anna Blinkova or Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina to reach the quarter-finals.
With Pegula on the sidelines alongside Caroline Garcia (No. 5), Maria Sakkari (No. 8) and Petra Kvitova (No. 10), four of the women’s top 10 are already gone. It’s part of a pattern this year at Roland Garros: just 12 seeds made it through two rounds, the fewest in Paris since the field expanded to 32 seeds in 2002.
One seed who didn’t struggle on Friday was No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who advanced to the fourth round with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Kamilla Rakhimova.
Sabalenka broke twice in the first set and took a 3-0 lead in the second set against a sun-drenched Court Philippe Chatrier to set up a meeting with either American Sloane Stephens or Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva. Sabalenka progressed through the third round, having lost in the last three French Open tournaments up to that point.
“It feels great to feel the support and just being on this court and having the opportunity to play tennis,” Sabalenka said after an encounter that lasted just over an hour.
In singles, Pegula will now try to win a doubles title alongside 19-year-old Coco Gauff, whose third-round singles match on Saturday takes on 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva. A year ago, Gauff finished second in singles at the French Open and reached the final in doubles with Pegula.
“Obviously that’s still a good chance, hopefully going a little further than last year,” Pegula said of the doubles, “so I’ll definitely focus on that now.”
Portal and The Associated Press contributed to this report.