Ana Ivanovic of Serbia moved within one match of her third Grand Slam final by defeating Swiss veteran Patty Schnyder 6-3, 6-2 in the French Open quarter-finals yesterday.
The 20-year-old second seed lost to Justine Henin in straight sets in the final last year and to Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open final in January.
Playing in damp, overcast conditions, Ivanovic broke early to lead 2-0, but the 29-year-old 10th seed, playing in her 48th Grand Slam tournament and 13th straight at Roland Garros, hit back to level at 2-2.
PHOTO: AP
Ivanovic was clearly the more powerful of the two with Schnyder looking to counter by moving the bigger woman around with her looping cross-court groundstrokes.
The Serb took the first set 6-3 and she immediately broke to love in the opening game of the second, a deft drop shot winner doing the damage on break point.
Schnyder had three break points on the Ivanovic serve in the following game, but the Serb had her back-pedaling frantically as she battled back to hold on for a 2-0 lead.
The Swiss player survived a marathon game on her following serve but two games later two poorly executed drop shots allowed Ivanovic to nail the double break.
At 4-1 up and her own serve to come there was no stopping her although she needed three match points to finish it off as the rain started to fall.
Meanwhile fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova completed a 6-2, 6-3 win over Victoria Azarenka of Belarus to earn a place in the last eight.
The tie had been held over from late on Monday with the former US Open champion a set ahead and level 2-2 in the second set against the 18-year-old former world junior champion.
She wasted little time on the resumption to earn a clash with the unseeded Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.
Kanepi made it through to her first Grand Slam quarter-final with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win over Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in another tie left unfinished on Monday.
“No one from the Estonia has ever made it to the quarter-finals for women so I am very pleased about that,” she said. “I have been believing in myself that I can beat the top players and I was hoping for a breakthrough sometime.”
The two have not played each other on the senior stage, but the Tallinn-born Kanepi will take heart from the fact that she defeated Kuznetsova in three sets to win the French Open junior girls title in 2001.
Champagne corks often pop and loud, boisterous cheers are usually heard around Constitution Dock when the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honors winner finishes in the Tasmanian state capital. There were no such celebrations this year when the defending champions on board LawConnect won the race in the early hours of yesterday morning, as it came about 24 hours after two sailors died on separate boats in sail boom accidents two hours apart on a storm-ravaged first night of the race. LawConnect, a 100-foot super maxi skippered by Australian tech millionaire Christian Beck, sailed up the River Derwent at just after 2:30am.
Elena Rybakina’s Kazakhstan yesterday dumped defending champions Germany out of the United Cup with world No. 2 Alexander Zverev sidelined by an arm injury barely a week away from the Australian Open. The upset in Perth sent the Kazakhs into the semi-finals of the 18-nation tournament. In Sydney, women’s world No. 2 Iga Swiatek led Poland into the last eight by winning a rematch of her 2023 French Open final against Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic. Britain also progressed to the quarter-finals with Katie Boulter’s dominant 6-2, 6-1 victory over Australia’s Olivia Gadecki enough to guarantee they won their group. The US and
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