No.2 seed Rybakina becomes biggest name to fall so far
Jakub Mensik after his 4hr 41min victory
Day 4 in Paris and the drama continued as once more temperatures exceeding 30c baked the famous red clay in the French capital.
World No.2 and this year’s Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina was the highest seed to fall on Wednesday when Ukraine’s Yuliia Starodubtseva played the match of her life for a first top-10 victory 3-6, 6-1, 7-6[10-4].
“It’s hard to describe,” the 26-year-old said on court. “I’m very proud I could do this today.”
Whether it’s the increased physical and mental challenge that comes with playing in the heat, the faster courts and conditions, the higher bouncing shots or a drier, skiddier surface that are combining to make life even more challenging for the higher ranked players, the surprise results and close matches kept on coming.
In fact, RG’s Chris Oddo chatted to several of the top stars - Iga Swiatek, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Hailey Baptiste among others - to find out exactly how the warm weather this week has changed things.
By the end of play on Wednesday another seven seeds had fallen during the opening day of second round matches including that Rybakina result.
The Italian 2024 runner-up Jasmine Paolini was the next highest seed to say goodbye when the world No.13 lost to Argentina’s Solana Sierra in three sets on Court Suzanne-Lenglen.
No.26 seed Hailey Baptiste had the misfortune of injuring her ankle after nine games of her match and had to retire. Former champion and No.29 seed Jelena Ostapenko and the 32nd seed Wang Xinyu also lost.
In the men’s draw Spain’s 21st seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and French 32nd seed Ugo Humbert crashed out.
Of the top players that won on Day 4, a good proportion had to dig very deep to scramble into the third round.
Three-time champion Novak Djokovic admitted afterwards that he was pushed hard by French player Valetin Royer before coming through in four sets. Karen Khachanov, Andrey Rublev and Rafael Jodar were other seeds that all needed four sets too.
Joao Fonseca was involved in one of the best matches of the day when he won from two sets down for the first time in his career to scrape past Dino Prizmic on a rowdy Court 14. The Brazilian faces Djokovic in the third round on Friday. “I'm going to enjoy every moment playing against an idol,” the teenager said.
Recent Madrid champion Marta Kostyuk was another who needed a deciding set before winning against American Katie Volynets, while even Swiatek’s 6-2, 6-3 passage against Czech Sara Bejlek wasn’t without its complications.
No.8 seed Mirra Andreeva hit back from a set down to get the better of Spain’s Marina Bassols Ribera 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.
Three seeded men who made the most of the later, cooler part of the day were No.2 seed Alexander Zverev, Casper Ruud and Tommy Paul.
Zverev was always in control against the injured Tomas Machac during the Chatrier night session, while Ruud was too solid for Hamad Medjedovic 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 on Lenglen and he’ll next step on court with the American Paul who cruised past Lorenzo Sonego.
We have a new longest match of the tournament after Jakub Mensik’s memorable deciding tiebreak victory over Mariano Navone from Argentina. The Czech converted his seventh match point to win 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6[13-11] after 4hr 41min before collapsing onto the dirt with cramp.
The remainder of the second round matches will be completed on Thursday with world No.1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka both starring on the main Chatrier court.
There are so many great matches in store across all the courts on Day 5. Alix Ramsay guides us through the schedule.
ROLAND-GARROS
17 May - 6 June 2027
