Upset Central as Muguruza, 5 Seeds Exit at French Open

Who got upset Sunday at Roland Garros, besides more than half the players in action?
ADHEREL
No. 4 seed and defending champion Garbine Muguruza, No. 8 and former champ Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 10 Venus Williams, No. 17 Anastasija Sevastova, and No. 23 Sam Stosur were all upended by lower ranked opponents, completely opening up the draw on the women’s side.

Muguruza was outhit 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 by No. 13-seeded Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic.

“You’re making me cry,” the Frenchwoman told the crowd afterwards. “I love playing in front of you. I’m not perfect, I make mistakes. I made about 35 double faults. You give me the courage and strength to keep going in every point. It’s thanks to you that I’m through and we’re in the quarters, yeah!”

In other Top 10-seeded upsets No. 11 Caroline Wozniacki toppled the No. 8 Kuznetsova 6-1, 4-6, 6-2, and No. 30 Timea Bacsinszky ground down No. 10 Venus Williams 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.

“It’s pretty good work for a Sunday,” Bacsinszky told the crowd afterwards. “The first set I was well ahead and then I started making absolutely catastrophic decisions. I thought, I don’t want to finish my Sunday like this! So I started to vary my shots and I kept up my courage.”

Wozniacki said adapting her stokes to clay is part of her progress into week two.

“Shots that work well on hard courts don’t work as well here,” the Dane said. “You definitely need to mix the pace more up here. You need to try and get more depth. Sometimes on the hard courts you can get away with some shorter balls or some balls that have less angle. Here you really need to have a purpose with every shot.”

Other upset winners were Croat Petra Martic rolling over the No. 17 Sevastova 6-1, 6-1, and Latvian teen Jelena Ostapenko who out-hit the No. 23 Stosur 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.

The only Top 10 players to right the ship were No. 2 Karolina Pliskova who beat Germany’s Carina Witthoeft 7-5, 6-1, and No. 5 Elina Svitolina who defeated Poland’s Magda Linette 6-4, 7-5.

Matches on court Monday at Roland Garros will be (3) Simona Halep vs. (21) Carla Suarez Navarro, (28) Carolina Garcia vs. Alize Cornet in an all-French battle, (5) Svitolina vs. Martic, and (2) Pliskova vs. Veronica Cepede Royg.