Iga Swiatek-Jelena Ostapenko head to head will not grace the French Open this year

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2 days ago

Welcome to the French Open briefing, where will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament in Paris.
On day six, a defending champion avoided her nemesis, a world No. 1 learned of her first test, and a dirty towel caused commotion on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
Iga Swiatek keeps a poker face about her head-to-head with Jelena Ostapenko — for a second anyway
After four-time champion Iga Swiatek got past world No. 60 Jaqueline Cristian in straight sets, the tennis world's attention turned to the match that followed hers on Court Suzanne-Lenglen — and to the fourth-round meeting that everyone wanted to see.
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Nothing against 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, who faced Jelena Ostapenko in the third round, but Ostapenko's head-to-head with Swiatek has developed into the most compelling non-rivalry in the sport. Ostapenko, a wildly inconsistent player who won her only Grand Slam title here in Paris right years ago, has beaten Swiatek, a five-time major champion and a world No. 1 for over 100 weeks, in all six matches they have played against each other.
They have still never faced off at Roland Garros, so everything was set up to see whether Swiatek could finally end her hoodoo against the player who seems to live rent-free in her head on her favorite court in the sport. Following her win over Cristian, Swiatek has a 38-2 record through her 40 matches at the French Open, matched only by its seven-time champion Chris Evert in the women's game in the Open Era.
When Swiatek arrived for her news conference after beating Cristian, the outcome of the Ostapenko-Rybakina match was not known. Asked if she had a preference about who she'd play next, Swiatek responded by saying no and keeping a completely straight face.
A second later, she burst into laughter, adding: 'Am I a good liar?'
About half an hour later, Rybakina finished off Ostapenko 6-2, 6-2, and with that, so many tennis fans' dream died.
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A match between Rybakina and Swiatek is at least likely to be less mercurial: head-to-head is at 4-4.
Hopefully, a Wimbledon champion going up against the winner of the past three French Opens will help to soften the blow of the match that never was.
How did a dirty towel get in the way of a win for the men's No. 10 seed?
Holger Rune started this tournament playing on Court 7. For a guy who wants to prove that he is his generation's third member of a Big Three 2.0 with Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, that kind of court assignment doesn't sit all that well, even though the world No. 10 has some way to go to even approach the status those other two have in the sport.
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Rune doesn't mind that assignment too much in Paris, reserving his annoyance for last year's U.S. Open, which put him on a court he deemed so unsatisfactory that he provided his fans with a map to find it.
The Dane has been on Court Philippe-Chatrier for the two rounds since. He's enjoyed it, except for a while this afternoon. Partly because French opponent Quentin Halys was threatening to knock him out of the tournament, but mostly because a fan didn't like the way Rune put his sweaty, clay-speckled towel back into its box.
Here's how the always-entertaining Rune tells the story:
'I put my towel down in the box, and the guy was yelling, aggressive with me. He reached out for me. I thought this was very strange, because I did not do anything against him and he should not interact with a player on the court. It's a bit embarrassing, I think.
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'I told the supervisor that I would prefer him not being there, because it was a bit uncomfortable. They said they'd check the video, and, I guess, if it was true what I said they would get him away. I guess they checked, and I didn't see him for the rest of the match.'
Rune said Halys apologized to him for the partisan crowd when the match was over.
'I said, 'Don't worry. I don't think it was anything crazy'.'
A non-Frenchman, Lorenzo Musetti of Italy, is next for Rune in a match for the clay-court connoisseurs.
A tricky test for Sabalenka?
So far, it's been plain sailing for the world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who is yet to drop a set at the tournament. She cruised past world No. 34 Olga Danilovic 6-2, 6-3 Friday in the third round — and that was her closest scoreline yet.
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Things should now get a bit tougher, with her next opponent being the American No. 16 seed Amanda Anisimova. She too, is yet to drop a set, and has won five of her seven meetings with Sabalenka. Four of those were before Sabalenka had won her first Grand Slam, however, and the Belarusian is a very different player now. Back then, she lacked the variety to change things if getting outgunned by the big-hitting Anisimova.
But since last year's Italian Open, Sabalenka has embraced variety and touch as parts of her game, becoming a more complete player and offering her different valves for when she needs a release from her usual strategy. This next meeting with Anisimova should provide an opportunity to demonstrate how far she's come — or it could provide Anisimova the opportunity to rubberstamp what's already been an impressive return to the tour since a break to address burnout last year.
A win would make this her joint-best run at a Slam since 2019, when she reached the semifinals here in Paris at age 17.
What happened in the strangest match so far?
A tennis fan who looked at the draw Friday morning might have pencilled Hamad Medjedovic of Serbia into the fourth round.
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Medjedovic is a Novak Djokovic project, and Djokovic has said he is headed for big things. He won the Next Gen Finals in 2023, and its champions usually go on to big things – Alcaraz, Sinner, Tsitsipas. It's taking Medjedovic a little longer to get where he wants to be than it did those guys, but he had gotten off to a promising start here in a section of the draw that got more and more inviting as the first week wore on.
He has some of the biggest power in the game, but also can play with an off-speed, junkballing style when he needs to. He had Daniel Altmaier of Germany, a talented clay-court player who dispatched American No. 1 Taylor Fritz in the first round, on Friday for a spot in the second week.
For Medjedovic, trouble started early. He called a doctor to the court at 2-1 in the first set and had his blood pressure and vital signs examined. He continued, but something was visibly wrong for the remainder of the match, with the world No. 74 struggling to move around the court and regularly leaning on his racket.
He won that first set from 4-2 down, but was able to put up only limited resistance the rest of the way, moving little, resorting to every trick he had to extend the match, hoping it might turn around.
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Medjedovic has form for winning when compromised. He beat Tsitsipas on one leg after pulling a muscle deep in the third set of their match in Doha in February, hobbling between smashing winners as early and often as he could. That was just for a couple of games and a tiebreak, though. Three whole sets on a hot day in Paris is a tougher proposition.
This time, in the end, it did not turn around.
Those big things will have to wait a little longer.
Shot of the day
Sometimes. the official social-media account gets it right.
French Open men's draw 2025
French women's draw 2025
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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