World No.1 Iga Swiatek moved into the Roland Garros quarterfinals for the fourth straight year after an ailing Lesia Tsurenko retired from their fourth-round match on Court Suzanne Lenglen. Tsurenko was trailing 5-1 in the opening set when she stopped play.
"I have something like Rybakina had, a virus or whatever it is," Tsurenko said afterwards. "My body could not handle it. I did everything possible to manage it, but unfortunately, it's a different thing just to do normal things and play tennis.
"I could not practice yesterday. ... It was tough for me to warm up, but I was hoping for just starting match and maybe I would feel a little bit better. But, unfortunately, it was getting worse, so I had to stop because it was not the way I wanted to be on court and to play tennis for sure."
Swiatek streak continues: "It's not nice to finish a match like that," Swiatek said in her post-match press conference. "So I hope Lesia is going to be okay and she'll recover quickly."
Despite the shortened performance on Monday, defending champion Swiatek has won her 11th straight match at the French Open. Swiatek, the titlist in 2020 as well as last year, is up to 25-2 at the tournament throughout her career.
"I don't want to take this for granted, because I know every tournament is a different story," Swiatek said. "We all can kind of have really tough opponents even in the first or second round and struggle, because, as well, the beginnings of the tournaments are sometimes tough.
"But I just feel pretty solid here [at Roland Garros]. I'm happy that I'm in a quarterfinal, and every year I'm gonna do my best to always reach these stages or even more so."
Gauff next up: In the quarterfinals, Swiatek will face No.6 seed Coco Gauff in a rematch of last year’s Roland Garros final. Gauff ousted Anna Karolina Schmiedlova earlier on Monday to return to the quarterfinals in Paris. Swiatek has won all six of her previous meetings with Gauff in straight sets.
It will be the second time in the Open Era (since 1968) that there will be a French Open final rematch in the following year's quarterfinals. Chris Evert beat Virginia Ruzici in the 1980 French Open final, and Evert won the rematch in the 1981 quarterfinals as well.
No.1 still in play: Swiatek is still in contention to retain her World No.1 ranking coming out of Paris, but Aryna Sabalenka could also take the top ranking for the first time before the fortnight ends:
Since Sabalenka has reached the quarterfinals, Swiatek needs to reach the semifinals to have a chance of staying No.1.
If Sabalenka reaches the semifinals, then Swiatek would need to reach the final to have a chance of staying at No.1.
If Sabalenka reaches the final, Swiatek could hold on to No.1 only by winning the title.
With Swiatek and Sabalenka both in the elite eight, this is the first year since 2013 that the No.1 and No.2 seeds have advanced to the Roland Garros quarterfinals.
Match review: Swiatek of Poland came into Monday's fourth-round encounter with a 2-0 record over Ukraine's Tsurenko. Swiatek had beaten Tsurenko by identical 6-2, 6-0 score lines two times on clay, in the first round of last year's French Open and earlier this year in Rome.
Swiatek started play on Court Lenglen by taking a commanding 4-0 lead before Tsurenko got on the board with a service break. However, directly after that game, Tsurenko was seen by the physio, where she was evaluated and had her blood pressure checked.
Former Top 25 player Tsurenko, a quarterfinalist at the 2018 US Open, came back on court for one more game. But after dropping serve, Tsurenko deemed herself unable to continue, and action ended after 31 minutes.
92.6% - Only Margaret Court (95.2%) now has a higher winning ratio at Roland-Garros in the Open Era than Iga Swiatek (92.6%) - surpassing Chris Evert (92.3%). Park.
60 - In the last 50 years, only Monica Seles (63) and Chris Evert (66) have played fewer clay courts matches than Iga Swiatek (69) to reach 60 wins in this surface. Dusting.
4/5 - Iga Swiatek is the first female player to make 4+ quarterfinals at the Roland-Garros in her first five main draw appearances at the event since Monica Seles (5/5, in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1996). Home.
Hoping and praying that whatever virus Tsurenko had stays away from Iga.
Hoping it's not the dreaded one we've been battling the past 3 years in a Pandemic.
Sort of wish Iga hadn't hugged Tsurenko at the net.
Handshake would have been the safer option.
A 7th meeting with Coco Gauff for a place in the semis.
Jazda!
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