Kasatkina's Paris dream dies along with Aussie hopes
Daria Kasatkina's first grand slam dance as an adopted Australian is over, ended at the French Open by her teen phenomenon friend Mirra Andreeva.
Two months since being granted permanent residency, Kasatkina's hopes of becoming the first Australian woman to reach the quarter-finals since Ash Barty's winning year of 2019 finally unravelled 6-3 7-5 at the hands of her 18-year-old fellow Russian-born buddy.
The only other time the pair had played, in the final of last October's Ningbo Open in China, Andreeva had ended in tears and needed to be comforted by Kasatkina after blowing a 3-0 lead in the final set.
This time, though, the French-based teen who's rocketed to No.6 in the world didn't let Kasatkina, 10 years her senior, off the hook on Court Suzanne Lenglen despite another nervy blip.
Kasatkina had a set point to level the match after rallying in gritty fashion but the world No.6 Andreeva stormed back to seal a straight-sets win after a compelling 94-minute duel.
Defeat for Kasatkina meant the end of the green-and-gold challenge in the singles at Roland Garros, but she could pride herself on having been the last Aussie standing among the 16 starters in the draw.
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He chipped in for an eagle and a birdie on his way to his 66 and shot up the leaderboard after a brief weather delay, eagling the par-5 14th and birdieing each of the next two holes. His chip at No.14 was a soft placement next to a slope, and his ball rolled from right to left right into the cup. At the par-4 16th, he missed the green and chopped his third shot out of some thick rough, only to watch his ball head straight to the pin and disappear again. "Man, what's nice is coming out into some soft conditions," DeChambeau said. "That little chip shot became a hell of a lot easier for me. So I just chipped it out to the right exactly what I saw. I don't know if you saw, but I was studying it before I left. "I was like this looks perfect, came out, still looks perfect, hit it exactly where I wanted it to land, and it went right in the frickin' hole." Leishman is tied for third with Phil Mickelson, who may play in his final US Open next week. 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RangeGoats lead the team competition at nine under par, two shots better than 4Aces and DeChambeau's team, Crushers GC.
