By Chris Oddo | Monday June 5, 2017
Caroline Garcia won an all-French affair to reach her first career Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Photo Source: Alex Pantling/Getty
The women’s quarterfinals are all set and for the first time since 1994 two French woman have reached the last eight at Roland Garros. For the first time since the 1979 Australian Open, we enter the quarterfinals of a major without a single former Grand Slam champion still hovering in the draw.
More: Halep Storms into Quarterfinals and Will Face Svitolina
One of those unlikely contestants is France’s Caroline Garcia. The No.28-seed, tabbed as a future No.1 when she took a set off of Maria Sharapova at Roland Garros in 2011, has needed a fair bit of seasoning to finally reach her potential. There has been no lack of ups and downs in Garcia’s career. But she is most certainly riding her highest high after taking out Alizé Cornet, 6-2, 6-4, to book her spot alongside No.2-seeded Karolina Pliskova in her first career major quarterfinal.
In this her 21st major, Garcia has done what’s been expected of her. She defeated No.83 Nao Hibino in the first round, No.283 Chloe Pacquet in the second and No.109 Hsieh Su-Wei in the third.
Her victory over World No.43 Cornet on Monday evening in Paris was the biggest of her career and it featured a mostly sublime effort from the 23-year-old. There were moments were nerves took over late in the second set, particularly on serve, but Garcia was able to use her return to guide her through to victory after failing to serve the match out twice.
Garcia has shone on the big stage in Paris before. She claimed the doubles crown with Kristina Mladenovic last year and the duo became the first all-French duo to win the women's double title at Roland Garros since 1971. But the pair split this year, and acrimony has replaced their elation. Just today there were reports of Mladenovic, who is also in the quarterfinals, making critical comments about Garcia with regard to how she initiated the breakup of their doubles tandem.
"What really happened is that she just decided that she wanted to stop playing doubles and she just sent me a poor message over the phone," she told Sport360. "I would have understood any reason she would have given me to stop playing together–anything she would’ve told me I would’ve totally agreed and respected. But she didn’t have the courage or human values to come and talk to me face-to-face and say ‘listen Kiki, I have these goals, I see it like this, I want to stop for that reason’ but that didn’t happen.
"So I was extremely disappointed about that."
Whatever the inner workings of the breakup, the split has not harmed the singles career of either player, as each is through to the last eight in Paris for the first time.
No.2-seeded Pliskova is an unlikely quarterfinal contestant as well, not because of her overall prowess but because of her affinity for the clay. The tall, stoic Czech entered this year’s draw with a 28-28 lifetime record on clay and a 2-5 record at Roland Garros. But she is an experienced, proven talent on tour now (see seed and World No.3 ranking) and has cleverly crafted ways to win and survive on this hear least favorite surface. Pliskova has now reached at least the quarterfinals of her last three majors after failing to get out of the first week at her first 17 majors.
Pliskova’s maturity, and ability to win without her best tennis have made the difference for her in the last year and a half, and certainly this week on the clay. On Monday she found herself down a set to World No.97 Veronica Cepede Royg of Paraguay, but stayed the course, flipped the script and eked out a very tight third set to advance.
It could have gone either way.
The Paraguayan enjoyed a career-best run in Paris, defeating Lucie Safarova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova en route to the quarters, but Pliskova was cooler in the clutch in the final set—after a trade of breaks in the final stanza she took the final two games of the match to secure the 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win.
The victory means that Pliskova has a shot to claim the No.1 ranking by week’s end. If she reaches the final and Simona Halep does not win the tournament, she’ll become the 23rd WTA player to top the rankings since their inception in 1975.
Halep blitzed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, 6-1, 6-1, earlier on Monday to keep her hopes of winning a first career major and becoming No.1 alive. The Romanian, a former finalist in Paris, is the oddsmakers favorite to win in Paris, but will have to get past a scorching hot Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals to keep that dream alive.
Svitolina, seeded fifth, claimed her tour-leading 35th win of the season on Monday, defeating unlikely round of 16 contestant Petra Martic, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5
See the complete quarterfinal lineup on the women’s side below: