Elise Mertens is finding her feet in Paris. The Belgian is currently #26 in the world, but has been as high as #7.
Elise Mertens returning to form
The 27-year-old Belgian is finding her feet again at the French Open. Mertens had not had the best start to the season in singles. However, in the doubles Mertens has a new partner in Storm Sanders, and the scratch partnership has made a quarterfinal and won an event so far this year.
In singles, Elise Mertens has been making steady progress. The Belgian made the third round in the Australian Open and that has been really the furthest in big events. However, Mertens did make the fourth round in Miami and Monterrey. Her clay court performance before Paris was nothing much to write home about, losing in the first round in Bogota and Rome. In Madrid, the Belgian lost in the third round.
Roland Garros
Elise Mertens has been impressive in Paris so far. The Belgian steamed through her first-round match, losing a total of five games in the straight-sets win. The second round was very similar, although the second set was a tiebreak, which the Belgian eased through to set up a meeting with the third seed.
Jessica Pegula and Mertens have met three times in total now on Tour. Although the favorite due to ranking, the American actually has not yet won a match against the Belgian. In fact, Pegula has only ever taken one set from Mertens.
In this match, Mertens replicated the result of the first meeting. The Belgian dominated the first set and lost only one game. The second set was very slightly closer, but the 27-year-old still eased through and took the win to extend the head to head over Pegula.
Mertens will be confident of repeating this if she meets Pegula on the tour again, as the American has not been able to get near a win against the Belgian so far. The next match will see where Mertens’ game is, as she is against 2021 finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. The Russian is unseeded, but has fought through against the 15th and 24th seeds to reach this point.
Hopefully we get a show court for this match up. Can Elise Mertens go further than the fourth round? Why not? Nothing to say that the current form won’t continue.
Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
