Roland-Garros: Stephens books spot in last 16, sets up Sabalenka showdown

American Sloane Stephens won against Kazakh Yulia Putintseva 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 to reach the last 16 of Roland-Garros in Paris on Friday.

Stephens, ranked No 30, will play Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the second seed, next.

With this win, Stephens levelled up her head-to-head with Putintseva to 3-3. Intriguingly, every single one of those matches has gone to three sets.

This is also a tournament where the American has reached the final, finishing as runner-up to Simona Halep in 2018, and she now has 35 match wins in Paris. More than that, she has now won 13 of her last 15 matches on clay.

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Tennis Majors

Ahead of her victory, the American beat Czech Karolina Pliskova, the No 16 seed (6-0, 6-4) and Russian Varvara Gracheva (6-2, 6-1).

Putintseva, ranked No 58, defeated Belgian Maryna Zanevska (7-5, 7-6 (3)) and Chinese Qinwen Zheng, the No 19 seed (6-3, 4-6, 6-2) in the previous rounds of the French Open.

Paris (Grand Slam), other third-round results (Stade Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 49.600.000, most recent results first):

• Olga Danilovic vs. Ons Jabeur
• Iga Swiatek vs. Xinyu Wang
• Bianca Andreescu vs. Lesia Tsurenko
• Elisabetta Cocciaretto vs. Bernarda Pera
• Anna Karolina Schmiedlova vs. Kayla Day
• Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Beatriz Haddad Maia
• Mirra Andreeva vs. Coco Gauff
• Elena Rybakina vs. Sara Sorribes Tormo
• Karolina Muchova vs. Irina-Camelia Begu
• Elina Avanesyan (LL) beat Clara Tauson (Q): 3-6, 6-1, 7-5
• Elina Svitolina beat Anna Blinkova: 2-6, 6-2, 7-5
• Aryna Sabalenka beat Kamilla Rakhimova: 6-2, 6-2
• Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova beat Anastasia Potapova (24): 4-6, 6-3, 6-0
• Elise Mertens (28) beat Jessica Pegula (3): 6-1, 6-3
• Daria Kasatkina (9) beat Peyton Stearns: 6-0, 6-1