Tough Day for U.S. Women in France as Six of Nine Eliminated
Day Four of the 2012 French Open resulted in six of the nine remaining American women being eliminated from the event. Vania King lost to the number 15 seed, Dominika Cibulkova, 6-0, 6-2. Sloane Stephens defeated fellow American Bethanie Mattek-Sands easily by a score of 6-1, 6-1. Stephens will next face Mathilde Johansson of France. Irina Falconi fell to the number six seed and 2011 U.S. Open champ Samantha Stosur, 6-1, 6-4.
Following her sisters’ footsteps with an early round exit, Venus Williams was defeated by the number three seed, Agnieszka Radwanska, 6-2, 6-3. After winning her first round match and showing some promise, wild card entrant Melanie Oudin fell to Italy’s Sara Errani, 2-6, 3-6. The last American of the day to be defeated was Alexa Glatch, a 3-6, 1-6 loser to Italy’s Flavia Pennetta, the number 18 seed.
Number one seed Victoria Azarenka advanced to the third round, as well as Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova. The most surprising result of the day was the early exit of the number eight seed Marion Bartoli of France, a 2-6, 6-3, 3-6 loser to Croatian Petra Martic.
On the men’s side of the draw, 10th-seeded John Isner remains as the only American left in the draw after the exit of Brian Baker, who fell at the hands of the 11th-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon.
The third seed, Roger Federer of Switzerland, was pushed to a fourth set before taking his match against Romanian Adrian Ungur, 6-3, 6-2, 6-7, 6-3. Tomas Berdych, Juan Martin del Potro, Fernando Verdasco and Stanislas Wawrinka, along with top-seeded Novak Djokovic, all advanced to the third round as well.
