Defending champion Simona Halep of Romania needed just 55 minutes to dispatch Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko 6-2 6-1 on Court Philippe Chatrier and advance to the fourth round of the French Open.
The third-seeded Halep converted 7 out of 7 break points by the time the scoreline read 6-2 5-1, then had her own serve broken at love, but in the following game used up her third break point to dominantly win the third-round match, increasing her head-to-head record against the world No.27 Tsurenko to 8-0.
The winners-to-unforced-errors differential was overwhelmingly on Halep’s side, as the former world No.1 hit 9 winners to 14 unforced errors, while Tsurenko outweighed her 8 winners by four times as many errors. The 27-year-old Ukrainian may have been hampered by injury, as she received a medial timeout in the second set, or was maybe troubled by the effects of a long second-round match that was played over two days.
The draw gods are on Halep’s side, as she will definitely not meet another seeded opponent until the semifinals, where her obstacles could be top seed Naomi Osaka or 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams.
