Roland-Garros: Svitolina saves three match points to knock out Paolini

Elina Svitolina, the No 13 seed, pulled off a fine comeback to defeat Jasmine Paolini, the No 4 seed, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1 and advance to the last eight at Roland-Garros.

Having lost the first set to another impressive showing from Paolini, the Ukrainian then found herself two match points down when serving to stay in the second set at 5-4.

But she saved both in order to force a tiebreak, where she saved a third match point at 6-5 down to reel off three straight points and clinch the second set when defeat had looked all but inevitable.

From there, Svitolina only grew in form and confidence as her opponent’s rapidly dissipated. She cantered to the third set 6-1 to reach the quarter-finals of the French Open for the fifth time in her career, having never reached the last four.

Paolini came into this year’s Roland-Garros as one of the outside favourites to take the title, having won both the singles and doubles titles in Rome in the run-up to the year’s second Slam.

Despite an impressive run to the fourth round, last year’s runner-up will be bitterly disappointed not to have returned to the last eight having played so well for the first half of this match.

“I don’t know. I think the reason is that she’s a great player. I had my chances, and I didn’t — I don’t know,” Paolini said after the match.

“Maybe one match point I could play better, but at the same time, she’s a great player. She played really well.

“I don’t know. It’s tennis, and sometime it happens, you know. It’s tough to accept, but at the same time you have to, as I said before.”

Svitolina, ranked No 14, will play the winner of the match between Kazakh Elena Rybakina, the No 12 seed, and Pole Iga Swiatek, the No 5 seed, next.

Ahead of her victory, the Ukrainian won against Zeynep Sonmez (6-1, 6-1), Hungarian Anna Bondar (7-6 (4), 7-5) and American Bernarda Pera (7-6 (4), 7-6 (5)).

Paolini, ranked No 4 and 2024 runner-up, won against Chinese Yue Yuan (6-1, 4-6, 6-3), Australian Ajla Tomljanovic (6-3, 6-3) and Ukrainian lucky loser Yuliia Starodubtseva (6-4, 6-1) in the previous rounds.

Roland-Garros (Grand Slam), other last 16 results (Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 56.352.000, most recent results first):

• Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Coco Gauff
• Madison Keys vs. Hailey Baptiste
• Lois Boisson vs. Jessica Pegula
• Mirra Andreeva vs. Daria Kasatkina
• Aryna Sabalenka vs. Amanda Anisimova
• Elena Rybakina vs. Iga Swiatek
• Liudmila Samsonova vs. Qinwen Zheng: sunday