Paris: Samantha Stosur and Jelena Jankovic, two of the strongest contenders for French Open title, have reached the French Open third round on Thursday.
Ninth-seeded Stour took an upper hand against Kristina Mladenovic as she won the first set by 6-4. She continued her dominance in the second round as he went 4-1 up before the rain came in.
Australian took the advantage of 20 minute window and finished off the match by winning the second set by 6-3 at Court Philippe Chatrier.
The 2011 US Open champion will face Serb 18th seed Jelena Jankovic for a place in the last 16.
Jankovic, a three time semi-finalist, cruised to the third round after beating the Spaniard, Garbine Muguruza quite comprehensively by 6-3, 6-0.
Meanwhile, China's Zheng Jie also made the cut of the last 32 with an easy win over Melanie Oudin of the United States by 6-3, 6-1.
Zheng was looking in great touch as she was moving across the court quite swiftly which allowed her to grab couple of sets with quite a ease. She didn’t give Oudin much of a chance in the second set and knocked her over by winning it by 6-1.
In the other game of the day, it was 27th seed Yaroslava Shvedova from Kazakh, who made the quarter-finals last year, was knocked out by Argentine qualifier Paula Ormaechea, 6-4, 7-6 (8/6).
Shvedova gave Ormaecha a tough fight but that wasn’t enough to win this stiff contest. After losing out in the first set by 6-4, she bounced back exceptionally well in the second set and managed to take it to a tie-breaker but she finally wore out and lost the match.
Ormaechea will face the American Bethanie Mattek-Sands for a spot in the last 16. Sands outplayed the sixth seeded Chinese, Li Na. She won the match by 5-7, 6-3, 6-2.
After losing out in the first set, Sands made the most of the match which was very badly interrupted by rain. She went to win the next two sets by 6-3 and 6-2 and did the biggest upset of the French open.
Whereas in the men’s category, 16th seed German, Philipp Kohlschreiber, reached the third round without striking a ball when his Taiwan counterpart Lu Yen-Hsun withdrew with an ankle injury.
