{"id":15207,"date":"2019-05-29T19:35:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T23:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=15207"},"modified":"2019-05-29T20:43:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T00:43:00","slug":"french-open-day-4-title-favorite-bertens-retires-after-four-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2019\/05\/29\/french-open-day-4-title-favorite-bertens-retires-after-four-games\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open Day 4: Title Favorite Bertens Retires after Four Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The fourth day of the\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/french-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French Open<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>featured the start of the second round with 16 matches on the women&#8217;s side. Second seed\u00a0<strong>Karolina Pliskova\u00a0<\/strong>looked sharp in a 6-2, 6-2 rout of qualifier\u00a0<strong>Kristina Kucova.\u00a0<\/strong>The 2017 Roland Garros semifinalist needed just 56 minutes to dispatch the Slovak, firing 29 winners and landing 76% of her first serves in play. Pliskova advances to face 31st seed\u00a0<strong>Petra Martic\u00a0<\/strong>in the third round after the Croat stormed past home favorite\u00a0<strong>Kristina Mladenovic\u00a0<\/strong>6-2 , 6-1.<\/p>\n<p>Last year&#8217;s runner-up\u00a0<strong>Sloane Stephens<\/strong>\u00a0is also into the last 32 after a 6-1, 7-6 (3) victory over\u00a0<strong>Sara Sorribes Tormo.\u00a0<\/strong>The pair had played a grinding two tiebreak affair in\u00a0<strong>Charleston\u00a0<\/strong>earlier this year that last almost two and a half hours. It looked to be heading in almost the opposite direction as the seventh seed wrapped up a quick first set before rallying from a break down three times in the second to eventually clinch the match in a tiebreaker.<\/p>\n<p>Fourth seed\u00a0<strong>Kiki Bertens\u00a0<\/strong>suffered heartbreak in her second round encounter with 21-year-old\u00a0<strong>Viktoria Kuzmova.\u00a0<\/strong>The Slovak led 3-1, 40-15 before the tournament favorite was forced to retire with a gastrointestinal illness. Kuzmova advances to the third round of a Major for the first time in her young career and will square off with 26th seed\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2019\/05\/22\/brits-fare-roland-garros\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Johanna Konta<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>who overcame American wild card\u00a0<strong>Lauren Davis\u00a0<\/strong>6-3, 1-6, 6-3.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Garbine Muguruza\u00a0<\/strong>had a relatively easy time with <strong>Johanna Larsson,\u00a0<\/strong>winning 6-4, 6-1 in just 66 minutes. The 2016 French Open champion faces ninth seed\u00a0<strong>Elina Svitolina,\u00a0<\/strong>who got a walkover from countrywoman\u00a0<strong>Kateryna Kozlova\u00a0<\/strong>after the World #67 suffered a rib injury.\u00a0<strong>Elise Mertens\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<strong>Anastasija Sevastova\u00a0<\/strong>booked a third round clash with easy wins, the 20th seeded Belgian routing French wild card\u00a0<strong>Diane Parry\u00a0<\/strong>and the 12th seeded\u00a0<strong>Latvian\u00a0<\/strong>taking care of\u00a0<strong>Mandy Minella\u00a0<\/strong>6-2, 6-4.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Carla Suarez Navarro\u00a0<\/strong>was made to work for her victory, getting past\u00a0<strong>Shelby Rogers\u00a0<\/strong>6-1, 6-7 (4), 6-3. The 28th seed advances to face\u00a0<strong>Marketa Vondrousova\u00a0<\/strong>after the Czech won an all-teenage battle against\u00a0<strong>Anastasia Potapova\u00a0<\/strong>6-4, 6-0. Another American to fall was\u00a0<strong>Jennifer Brady\u00a0<\/strong>who, despite saving a handful of match points in the second set, ultimately lost to\u00a0<strong>Lugano\u00a0<\/strong>champion\u00a0<strong>Polona Hercog\u00a0<\/strong>6-3, 6-7 (8), 6-4.<\/p>\n<p>In a pair of unseeded matches,\u00a0<strong>Veronika Kudermetova,\u00a0<\/strong>who upset 13th seed\u00a0<strong>Caroline Wozniacki\u00a0<\/strong>in the first round, beat\u00a0<strong>Zarina Diyas\u00a0<\/strong>7-5, 6-1 while\u00a0<strong>Kaia Kanepi\u00a0<\/strong>needed three sets to see off\u00a0<strong>Shuai Zhang\u00a0<\/strong>6-7 (4), 6-0, 7-5. The Russian and Estonian will now face each other for a spot in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, 23rd seed\u00a0<strong>Donna Vekic\u00a0<\/strong>shook off a rough first set to beat <strong>Rebecca Peterson\u00a0<\/strong>1-6, 6-1, 6-2. Her third round opponent has not been determined yet as 15th seed <strong>Belinda Bencic<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>Laura Siegemund\u00a0<\/strong>were deadlocked at 4-4 in the third set before darkness halted play following 6-4 sets being split, the German winning the first, the Swiss taking the second from a break down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fourth day of the\u00a0French Open\u00a0featured the start of the second round with 16 matches on the women&#8217;s side. Second seed\u00a0Karolina Pliskova\u00a0looked sharp in a 6-2, 6-2 rout of qualifier\u00a0Kristina Kucova.\u00a0The 2017 Roland Garros semifinalist needed just 56 minutes to dispatch the Slovak, firing 29 winners and landing 76% of her first serves in play. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":755,"featured_media":14367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5539,119,80,1248,1412,621,147,407,884,5150,463,5398,15],"class_list":["post-15207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-french-open","tag-2019-french-open","tag-anastasija-sevastova","tag-carla-suarez-navarro","tag-donna-vekic","tag-elise-mertens","tag-jennifer-brady","tag-karolina-pliskova","tag-kiki-bertens","tag-marketa-vondrousova","tag-polona-hercog","tag-sloane-stephens","tag-veronika-kudermetova","tag-wta"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}