Two of the potential favourites, Simona Halep and Dominic Thiem gave their opponents no chance in their 2020 French Open third round matches to move forward in the tournament as expected.
The top seeded Halep was at her imperious best as she avenged her previous French Open quarterfinal loss to American Amanda Anisimova. Halep dropped just one game in a match lasting a mere 54 minutes.
On the other hand, US Open winner Thiem is gunning for his maiden French Open title and showed what he is capable of with a straight-set victory against the in-form Casper Ruud in his round three match. He came through 6-4, 6-3, 6-1.
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Halep was aided in no small way by an off-colour Anisimova’s unforced errors, which totalled 32 in number, as compared to a mere seven off the Romanian’s racquet.
The top seed also took advantage of a poor second serve from Anisimova whereby she won just four points off it, and broke the American six times in the match. Facing just five break-points herself, Halep saved all of them.
Anisimova had stunned the then-defending champion Halep in the quarterfinal of the French Open last year to deliver her, to-date best Grand Slam showing. She had lost bit of her form coming into this tournament but a couple of solid wins in the previous rounds had brightened her chances coming into this one.
Halep will now take on Iga Swiatek in her fourth round match.
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Thiem registered a 6-4, 6-3, 6-1 win over Ruud in his third round match earlier in the day with the encounter lasting two hours and 15 minutes.
Ruud, who had come into the tournament on the back of successive semifinal appearances at the Rome Masters and Hamburg Open failed to rise to the challenge of the Austrian, managing just one break of serve in the entire match. Thiem got 15 chances to break him and did it six times.
With 32 winners and only 28 unforced errors under his belt, Thiem out-did Ruud’s 21-37 combination and will now face the winner of the match between Stan Wawrinka and Hugo Gaston.
Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska also came through to the fourth round in her maiden French Open main draw appearance by defeating Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-3, 6-2 in an hour and 39 minutes. She faces the winner of the Barbora Krejčíková-Tsvetana Pironkova match in her fourth round match.
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