Anna Blinkova beat world No. 5 Caroline Garcia

At the French Open, a series of sensations continues, to which players from Russia are directly related. On the fourth day of the Paris Grand Slam tournament, Anna Blinkova, ranked 56th in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) ranking, outplayed Caroline Garcia, world No. 5, winner of last year’s WTA Finals, Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia in three sets on Philippe Chatrier’s court. The success of Blinkova was pleasantly surprised by the correspondent of “Kommersant” Evgeny Fedyakov.

The drum beat, the trumpet played, the fans chanted the name of Caroline Garcia and, contrary to the unwritten rules of tennis etiquette, gave a shameless standing ovation after Anna Blinkova’s double faults. However, all this cacophony did not have any effect on the Russian woman. She was ready for the reaction of the stands, because she knew that she was playing against the best French tennis player.

“It was very loud at the very end. However, I perfectly understood why, ”Blinkova told the Kommersant correspondent after the game.

And then, nevertheless, the moment came when the Russian tennis player abruptly muffled the soundtrack of this battle of female nerves that unfolded on the court of Philippe Chatrier. Having blown away three match points in the tenth game of the third installment and five more in the twelfth game, Blinkova, according to her, before the ninth match point, tried to give herself courage, “relax and give up.” And it was possible to give up for a feast for the eyes. The pitch came out so strong and accurate that the Frenchwoman only managed to strike the ball with her racket. So hard, with insane torment, which lasted almost three hours, another sensation of the current tournament was born, which was left without the fifth number of the female “seeding”.

Higher-ranked tennis players have yet to lose at this Roland Garros.

Sensations are different. Sometimes, as, for example, in the case of the main loser of Tuesday, Daniil Medvedev, it is simply unrealistic to predict them. However, Blinkova’s meeting with Garcia had its own prehistory, which, although it did not guarantee a surprise, still hinted at it transparently. The fact is that exactly four years ago these opponents already met at the same tournament, on the same Philippe Chatrier court, and also in the second round. True, Garcia was then only 22nd in the ranking, but after all, Blinkova, who made her debut at Roland Garros and made her way into the main draw through qualifications, was not yet in the top hundred. Nevertheless, she managed to win in three games, winning back in the last of them with a score of 0:3.

Such victories are not forgotten, and the Russian, of course, remembered that match well. True, she refused to draw parallels with the current game.

“Both Caroline and I were different players then,” said Blinkova, who trains at Cannes and flaunted fine French after the game.

The winner, of course, knows better, although in tactical terms these two meetings were similar. In any case, Garcia, who prefers faster surfaces, played the same way as always – she tried to act as aggressively as possible, but did not succeed in this.

As a result – 4:6, 6:3, 7:5 in 2 hours 51 minutes. The main French hope of the tournament, the sensational champion of last year’s WTA Finals, dropped out in the second round of Roland Garros for the third time in a row and continued a rather nondescript season for itself, during which it has so far failed in all major competitions. Blinkova, on the other hand, clearly found her best game and in two weeks for the first time in her career she will be in the top fifty of the world ranking. Now the 24-year-old Russian woman will meet for the second time in a few days with Elina Svitolina, the most famous Ukrainian tennis player, who recently returned after the birth of her daughter and beat her last Saturday in the final of a small WTA clay tournament in Strasbourg.

The sensation from Anna Blinkova on Wednesday was not the only achievement of Russian women at Roland Garros. Last year’s semi-finalist Daria Kasatkina is gaining momentum, who confidently dealt with the silver medalist of the Tokyo Olympics and the finalist of the Paris tournament in 2019, the Czech Marketa Vondrousova, and before that, Anastasia Potapova coped with the Egyptian Mayar Sheriff in three sets. It was even more difficult for Potapova’s next opponent, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who, in the hot Parisian sun, met with another Russian woman, Lyudmila Samsonova. In the final set, the two-year-old Roland Garros finalist, who missed several months last season due to a knee injury and is participating in the current tournament thanks to a protected rating, was inferior – 2: 5, but then took five games in a row and won in 3 hours and 6 minutes.