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By Chris Oddo | Wednesday May 31, 2017

 
GArbine

Garbiñe Muguruza has erased any doubt about her fitness and form in the first two rounds of this year's French Open.

Photo Source: Julian Finney/Getty

Defending champion Garbiñe Muguruza now finds herself as the only Top-5 seed in her half of the draw after engineering a come-from-behind 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2 victory over Anett Kontaveit on Wednesday to increase her Roland Garros winning streak to nine matches.

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It was a rocky road for the 23-year-old Spaniard at first, and she dropped the first set in a tiebreaker and fell behind by a break before hitting her stride and taking control of the World No.53.

Muguruza won 12 of the final 16 games and did not surrender a break in her last eight service games. It was the perfect reaction to a difficult situation, and surely bodes well as she prepares for a third-round battle with No.27-seeded Yulia Putintseva.

"I was expecting this kind of match because I played her recently, and I saw her a little bit in the few tournaments before," Muguruza said of Kontaveit. "She was just playing good, a lot of confidence. I knew it was going to be a battle out there."

Muguruza had to withdraw from the Rome semifinals less than two weeks ago, but she appears to be in perfect health in Paris. She was able to avenge a loss to Kontaveit at Stuttgart in April by striking 27 winners against 30 unforced errors.

Muguruza escaped but others were not so lucky on Day 4. No.15-seeded Petra Kvitova fell to Bethanie Mattek-Sands early while No.6-seeded Dominika Cibulkova was stunned by Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur late on Wednesday.

Jabeur’s victory marked several milestones. She became the first Arab women to reach the third round at a major and the first WTA Lucky Loser to reach the third round at Roland Garros since 1996. The 22-year-old World No.114 also notched her first career Top-10 win. Her fairy tale run will continue on Day 6 when she meets No.30-seeded Timea Bacsinszky in the third round.


18-year-old CiCi Bellis also reached a milestone by knocking off No.18-seeded Kiki Bertens.

Bellis will face No.11-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the third round. No.8-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 13-seeded Kristina Mladenovic and No.23-seeded Sam Stosur and No.30-seeded Zhang Shuai also reached the third round on Wednesday.

Here is the way the top half of the women’s singles draw shapes up:


 

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