Naomi Osaka stages fightback to beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova
Naomi Osaka has handed out enough bagels in her career to open a bakery but the world No 1 experienced the humiliation herself before recovering to beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 0-6, 7-6 (4), 6-1 – one of the oddest scores at this French Open.
The last time Osaka was nilled it was in good company – Simona Halep paying her back in Rome last year for suffering the same fate at Indian Wells. But she can hardly have expected it from Schmiedlova, the Slovakian world No 90, who twice served for the match.
In the second round she plays Victoria Azarenka, who beat the 2017 champion, Jelena Ostapenko, 6-4, 7-6 (4). Osaka, bidding to become the first player to win a third straight major after winning her first two, has been nursing a hand injury since Rome.
It was feast and famine for the small British contingent on Tuesday. Kyle Edmund ended his run of five straight defeats in seven minutes when he completed his postponed match against Jérémy Chardy like the storm that threatened to wreck the schedule but never properly materialised.
The delayed climax of the longest match of the tournament to that point – four hours and two minutes – was quick and ruthless, the sort of tennis Edmund will need to reproduce against the experienced Uruguayan clay-court player Pablo Cuevas when they meet for the first time on Thursday.
Edmund resumed with ball in hand and the score standing at 7-6 (1), 5-7, 6-4, 4-6, 5-5, holding and breaking almost without pause. Rain was forecast but the only storm arrived on the strings of Edmund’s racket. While he had to soak up 30 aces in their interrupted Monday evening struggle, none came his way at the end.
“I knew there was no room for error,” Edmund said. “After last night, just below four hours, there was fatigue. Best-of-five was a marathon but this was a sprint today, and I just went for it. It’s tricky, especially emotionally: you’re in the match and then you’ve got to switch off. I got out of here at 11pm and arrived at 9am today. I think that is the longest match I’ve played, 4:02. It was really good for me to come through that test.”
Cameron Norrie collapsed spectacularly against Elliot Benchetrit, a young power-hitter who replaced Nick Kyrgios in the draw when the Australian withdrew citing illness, and he caught the eye to win 6-3, 6-0, 6-2 in an hour and 24 minutes.
The 20-year-old Frenchman, 6ft 4in and lean with a strong right arm, bamboozled the world No 49 with his wicked serve and a mixture of drop shots and booming forehands. There was no safe harbour for Norrie, who said: “I never really got into the match. All credit to him. He was too good.”
Jamie Murray went out, too, alongside Bruno Soares in their last doubles match together – the Italians Matteo Berrettini and Lorenzo Sonego winning 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (4) – after a three-year run that brought them two grand slam titles (among Murray’s six majors), the world No 1 ranking and a string of memorable wins. Both said they are parting on good terms.
Murray will team up with Liverpool’s Neal Skupski at least until the end of the year while Soares will play with the world No 12, Mate Pavic. Skupski is in the last days of his long partnership with his older brother, Ken, and on Tuesday they beat their compatriots Luke Bambridge and Jonny O’Mara, 6-1, 6-2.
Dan Evans played some wonderful tennis on his least favourite surface but Fernando Verdasco’s experience told and the Spaniard won 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-2 in three hours and 25 minutes.
Ivo Karlovic beat Feliciano López 7-6 (4), 7-5, 6-7 (7), 7-5 and become, at 40, the oldest winner at Roland Garros since Torben Ulrich, who won a match here in 1973 when he was 44.
Ulrich, a musician, poet, journalist, painter and filmmaker, played more than 100 Davis Cup matches for Denmark over four decades, the last of them when he was 49. He is the father of Metallica founder and drummer, Lars.
