Elina Svitolina got back into the fourth round for a second time at the French Open Sunday. The world number six had a challenge but dealt with adversity from Magda Linette to win 6-4, 7-5 on Court Suzanne Lenglen at Roland Garros. The 22-year-old had her service game at a level that broke down her opponent at critical moments to move on with her eighth match winning streak.
This was the first meeting between the two since they became pro around the same time. While the Polish number two continued reaching her personal best at Roland Garros, the Ukrainian was hunting down her third consecutive round of 16. The recently crowned world number six has been on a tear since her Italian Open title run; showing trouble only once against Tsvetana Prionkova on June.1.
Despite the excess work involved, she had the experience and dominance on clay to take it to the 25-year-old. Linette earned one of her best matches at the Open taking down Ana Konjuh 6-0, 7-5. It was the second time she earned a bagel and a response that would have be noticed quickly by the fifth seed.
The opened games were tightly contested between the two with Linette leading the way with the opening serve. She was soon figured out by the world number six who went on the attack to break her in the third. The Ukrainian’s game plan began to take shape as her offense took down Linette in the fourth to build a 3-1 lead. The 25-year-old Pole recovered in the fifth with a strong service hold that let Svitolina know the situation and her unwillingness to fall back.
She continued to prove that as the games went on; battling her forced errors while keeping the pressure on Svitolina to drop control. The Ukrainian played for the set but Linette had other ideas landing an ace on a slice to force deuce. She later recorded a line drive winner that took Svitolina out of contention for the ninth. She got the ball in hand for a second try in the tenth hoping to prevent the set from going forward. She kept the heat on her serves and flustered Linette to break and fall a set down after 33 minutes. Svitolina achieved 88 percent of points on the first serve that was the foundation of her control on serve as well as movements.
Wanting to have the same result as her opponent, Linette brought an improvement to her game leading the way on service in the second set. She and Svitolina went toe to toe on serve and remained that way for a time. They continued the hold of serve through six straight games where it looked to be a race to the set finish. Linette still had the upper hand as she took the ninth with the immediate threat of pushing Svitolina to a third set.
The Ukrainian saw the Polish stars attack for the lead but the world number six wouldn’t let her get it. Svitolina’s forehand gave her the key hold to go into extra games and find ways of turning the control back in her hands. Knowing that a break would be necessary, the sixth seed forced deuce, gained the advantage and won game point on a net tip that dropped into Linette’s end with no chance of returning. The victory set her up for the match where she gained two from unforced errors by Linette. A long ball gave the Ukrainian triple match point where a final error from the Polish star ended her tournament run after 88 minutes on court.
While all good things came from Svitolina’s game, she had little time to rest up as the rain delay played against her going into the fourth round. She’ll take on Petra Martic of Croatia on Monday in her quest to return to the quarterfinals and beyond.
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