Nadal into quarters, Muguruza out
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, June 5, 2017
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Kristina Mladenovic celebrates beating Garbine Muguruza. |
Garbine Muguruza failed to defend her French Open title as the Spanish lost to local favorite Kristina Mladenovic in three sets in women's singles fourth round, while Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic swept into men's singles quarter-finals on Sunday.
Fourth seed Muguruza was much troubled by home crowds' partisan support in her last 16 clash with the Frenchwoman. After losing 6-1 in the opening set, the Spanish levelled the score with a 6-3 win in the second set.
Mladenovic went on to win the decider 6-3 to record one of the biggest victory of her career in just under two hours.
Muguruza, who broke into tears at the postgame press conference, said she felt a little uncomfortable with how crowds behaved in the match, as she waved her forefinger when she left the court.
"The crowd today was a little bit obviously tough for me. I understand that.
"I just think that they sometimes should be a little bit more respectful, even though for the game, because we had to stop. The chair umpire has to always calm the crowd down," commented a disappointed reigning champion.
"I'm not here to create enemies. I love playing here. It's not a good feeling," she added.
Other women's Grand Slam singles winners also stopped their quest for the trophy. The eighth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova lost to Caroline Wozniacki 6-1, 4-6, 6-2.
Former world No. 1 Venus Williams, the seven-time Grand Slam singles winner, fell down to Timea Bacsinszky 5-7, 6-2, 6-1, and the 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur was defeated by Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia at 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.
The second-seeded Karolina Pliskova and the No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina earned their delayed third-round victories due to Saturday's rain. A new Grand Slam winner is set to emerge at the tournament as none of the women's players remaining made that.
Among four Chinese players who featured in women's doubles third round on Sunday, only Zheng Saisai remained in the draw as she and her Romanian partner Irina-Camelia Begu beat Duan Yingying and Peng Shuai of China 6-4, 6-2.
Another Chinese Xu Yifan and Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada lost 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 to Raluca Olaru and Olga Savchuk.
After only 90 minutes to come through the third round, Nadal, who spent his 31-year-old birthday on Saturday, recorded another three-set sweep of 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 over his Spanish compatriot Roberto Bautista Agut in one hour and 50 minutes in the fourth round.
Men's singles titleholder Djokovic came back from a tough first set, where he won through a tiebreak, to beat Spanish Albert Ramos-Vinolas 7-6 (5), 6-1, 6-3.
The Serbian will next face the No. 6 seed Dominic Thiem, who got past Horacio Zeballos 6-1, 6-3, 6-1. Nadal set up a quarter-final clash with fellow Spanish Pablo Carreno Busta, as the latter saw off the fifth-seeded Milos Raonic through a five-set thriller.
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