Belgium’s Elise Mertens reacts after beating Jessica Pegula of the U.S. throughout their third spherical match of the French Open tennis event at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, on June 2, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP
Jessica Pegula rapidly gathered her belongings and marched out of Court Philippe Chatrier after a 6-1, 6-3 loss to Elise Mertens within the third spherical Friday at the French Open, a far earlier exit than the No. 3-seeded American has been used to at Grand Slam tournaments recently.
Pegula was a quarterfinalist at 4 of the 5 most up-to-date majors, together with a yr in the past at Roland Garros.
She’s by no means gone additional than that stage at a Slam and by no means actually bought into this match towards the Twenty eighth-seeded Mertens on a day with a breeze at about 10 mph (15 kph) and a chill within the low 60s Fahrenheit (low teenagers Celsius).
“I feel like I was still playing good points. Elise was just being really tough, not making a lot of errors and making me play every single ball. And with the windy conditions, I felt like it definitely played into her game,” stated Pegula, whose mother and father personal the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.
“She returned well and I thought that she used the wind on both sides to her advantage,” Pegula stated. “She was playing aggressive on the side with the wind and then, against the wind, I think she was playing some really good defense.” Mertens is a 27-year-old Belgian who was a semifinalist at the 2018 Australian Open and twice has reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
But she nonetheless has not made it past the fourth spherical on the pink clay in Paris. She will try to try this when she performs Sunday towards 2021 French Open runner-up Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who beat No. 24 Anastasia Potapova 4-6, 6-3, 6-0.
With Pegula becoming a member of No. 5 Caroline Garcia, No. 8 Maria Sakkari and No. 10 Petra Kvitova on the sideline, 4 of the highest 10 ladies’s seeds already are gone. That’s a part of a sample this yr at Roland Garros: Only 12 seeds made it by two rounds, the fewest in Paris for the reason that discipline expanded to 32 seeds in 2002. With the losses by Pegula and Potapova, solely 10 stay.
Another lady from the United States joined Pegula on the way in which out early Friday: Peyton Stearns, the 2022 NCAA champion for the University of Texas, was eradicated by No. 9 Daria Kasatkina 6-0, 6-1 in 55 minutes.
In different early outcomes Friday, No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion in January, gained, as did males’s No. 11 seed Karen Khachanov.
Stearns, an enormous hitter who defeated 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko within the second spherical, merely couldn’t discover her targets. More than half of Kasatkina’s 59 factors got here by way of the 30 unforced errors by Stearns.
Pegula had related points, making 28 unforced errors to solely 13 by Mertens.
It was a tough begin for Pegula. When she dumped a forehand into the web, Pegula chucked her racket off the bottom, already down 4-0. The deficit was 5-0 after fewer than 20 minutes.
There was extra of the identical within the second set. Mertens used drop pictures successfully, and Pegula could not get going.
In the opening recreation of the second set, she put a backhand into the web and bounced her racket off the court docket. She flubbed a forehand and rolled her eyes.
There was a second of hope for Pegula when she held to lead 3-2, however then Mertens reeled off the ultimate 4 video games.
Now Pegula will try to chase a title in doubles alongside 19-year-old Coco Gauff, whose third-round match in singles comes Saturday towards 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva. A yr in the past, Gauff was the runner-up in singles at the French Open — and he or she additionally made it to the ultimate in doubles with Pegula.
“Obviously still a good chance to hopefully kind of go farther than we did last year,” Pegula stated about doubles, “so definitely I’m going to be focusing on that now.”
