America's magnificent eight match 40-year-old record at French Open
PARIS :Eight American players - five women and three men - have reached the French Open round of 16 this year, matching the country's record from 1985.
Saturday's victories for Australian Open champion Madison Keys and world number two Coco Gauff completed the five-player set of American women in the fourth round, where they join Jessica Pegula, Hailey Baptiste and Amanda Anisimova.
In the men's draw, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton are all still standing, to equal the record from 40 years ago, quite an achievement given that Americans are traditionally not natural claycourt players.
The brick-coloured surface is far more common across Europe where the majority of the claycourt season takes place every year.
In 1985, it was also five women and three men, led by tennis greats Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, who reached the last 16.
Bonnie Gadusek, Terry Phelps, Debbie Spence and Aaron Krickstein completed that year's American lineup in the fourth round.
"About time," said third seed Pegula, who ousted Czech Marketa Vondrousova to reach the last 16.
"It's exciting to see. Obviously, you want to see your fellow countrymen do well on the other side, and I'm always actually keeping up with them, you know, quite a lot."
The last American women's champion in Paris was Serena Williams a decade ago while the most recent victory for an American came in 1999 for Andre Agassi.
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