PARIS (Reuters) – Unseeded Polish teenager Iga Swiatek continued her impressive progress at the French Open as she swept aside former semi-finalist Eugenie Bouchard 6-3 6-2 to reach the last 16 for the second year running on Friday.
The 19-year-old, one of four teenagers to reach the third round, simply had too much firepower for wildcard Bouchard as she struck 30 winners on a damp and heavy Court Simonne-Mathieu.
Swiatek, whose run last year was ended by Simona Halep, has dropped only 13 games so far and spent little over three hours on court to race into the fourth round.
Bouchard, ranked 168th, reached the third round at a major for the first time since 2017, and battled hard against Swiatek but never really looked like turning it into a contest.
Swiatek broke three times in the opening set and again at the start of the second set. Canadian Bouchard did claw back to 2-2 but the last four games were one-way traffic.
Next up for Swiatek could be a re-match with Halep who she managed only one game against last year.
“If I play Simona again I just hope that it lasts longer than last year because it was only 40 minutes,” Swiatek said. “I was so stressed. My next goal is to make sure I play my best tennis on a big stadium here.”
Swiatek, ranked 54, has been incredibly consistent in Grand Slams so far, reaching the third round in four of the seven she has contested, including a fourth-round run at this year’s Australian Open and reaching the third round at the U.S. Open.
Bouchard, 26, will take some heart from her run but said she was beaten by a better player on the day.
“I felt the pressure from her, and that’s what good players are going to do,” she said. “That’s what I try to do on the court as well but today she did that better than me.”
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Toby Davis and Tomasz Janowski)
