Cirstea hands Sierra a double bagel in her last Roland-Garros, reaching the round of 16 in five years
Sorana Cirstea (No 18), 36, in her final Roland-Garros, beat Solana Sierra 6-0, 6-0 in 56 minutes on Court 14 – the oldest player in the Open Era to win a Grand Slam main-draw match by double bagel.
Sorana Cirstea – Roland-Garros 2026 © Michael Baucher / Psnewz
Sorana Cirstea, the 18th seed and a 36-year-old in her final Roland-Garros, dismantled Argentina’s Solana Sierra 6-0, 6-0 in 56 minutes on Court 14 on Friday to reach the round of 16 at the tournament for the first time in five years – and at any Grand Slam for the first time in three.
Sierra had come into the match on the back of two of the bigger upsets of the women’s draw: a straight-sets defeat of Emma Raducanu in the opening round, then a three-set comeback to beat Italian 13th seed Jasmine Paolini, the 2024 Roland-Garros finalist, in the second.
Cirstea, by contrast, had been the model of the steady veteran – beating French wild card Ksenia Efremova 6-3, 6-1 and German Eva Lys 6-3, 6-0 to reach the third round. The shape of the contest the bookmakers had projected was a tight one. What unfolded instead was the most efficient Grand Slam main-draw shutout the women’s tour has produced this year.
Cirstea lost no games. She broke Sierra’s serve every time the Argentine held it, made her opponent play the entire match on Cirstea’s terms. Cirstea is the oldest player in the Open Era to claim a 6-0, 6-0 win in a Grand Slam main draw.
The Romanian has now lost only seven games across three rounds in Paris. She has won 23 consecutive games since being 1-3 down to Lys in the second-round opening set — a streak that, on her current form, has no obvious natural endpoint. She arrived in Paris off a Rome semi-final run that included her first career win over a world No. 1, against Aryna Sabalenka, and the Rouen title before that. Sunday’s reward is Chinese qualifier Xiyu Wang, the world No. 110 who has come through her own three-round run unseeded.
