Mertens moves on in Parijs, Flipkens and Bencic go home

Elise Mertens reached the third round at Roland Garros in a chaotic match. The Belgian player was too strong for Heather Watson and won with 6-3 6-4.

Cheered by Belgian fans Mertens ran to an advantage of 3-0 and 40-0. However, the 16th seed lost some of her concentration and Watson came back by taking Mertens’s service game. Both ladies had difficulties to keep their own service, but Mertens managed to keep one and that was sufficient for winning the set: 6-3.

The second set was more or less a copy of the first one. Mertens got to 4-1 and the British came back to 4-4. The Belgian fans became even louder and cheered the player from Leuven to victory.

Belgium’s number one will play against Daria Gavrilova for a spot in the quarter-finals. The 24^th seed was too strong in three sets for Bernarda Pera from the USA.

Flipkens and Bencic
The tournament in the French capital is over for Kirsten Flipkens. The Belgian was unable to cope with Daria Kasatkina. The 21-year-old Russian was too strong, 6-3 6-3, and will meet 22-year-old Maria Sakkari from Greece in the next round.

Belinda Bencic was eliminated by Magdalena Rybarikova with 6-2 6-4. Only 18 games were played but the match lasted nearly 2 hours. The Slovakian will play CoCo Vandeweghe or Lesia Tsurenko in the third round.