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Achievements of Asian Players at Roland Gaross 2016
June 16th, 2016 | 08:16 AM | 2930 views
FRANCE
The 2016 Roland Gaross proved to be a successful one for the Asian players. As many as 35 players from Asian nations participated in the 2016th edition of the French Open in the professional player’s category.
The final outcomes of the Clay Open were very decent with star Asian performers coming out with a mixed bag of results. A Grand Slam Mixed Doubles crown, Mixed Doubles finalist trophy and a lot of quarter finalist performances can be attributed to the 35 player’s strong Asian presence at the 2016 French Open.
Stellar performance was achieved in the Women’s Singles category, the highest placement by an Asian player, Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva who at 20 years of age shows a promising presence in the world of tennis.
Ranked 60th at the moment, Yulia Putintseva beat the 28th Seed and World Number 31, Andrea Petkovic from Germany rather easily 6 2, 6 2 in the second round. She reached the Pre Quarter Finals stage with a loss of just 8 games.
In the Pre Quarters, Yulia Putintseva beat the 12th Seed, world ranked 14, Carla Suarez Navvaro of Spain 7 5, 7 5 and was pegged to face the top seed Serena Williams in the Quarter Finals.
Top seeded Serena Williams survived a scare from the 20 years old Yulia and for a stretch, it seemed the World No 1 Williams, a legend within sight of her 22nd slam, would be leaving the French Open in the quarter-finals, courtesy of a 5ft 4in girl ranked 60 in the world.
Putintseva won accolades for the achievement, as she was appearing in the first Grand Slam Quarter Final of her career, and although the young Kazakh gave Williams a run for her money, she wilted in the match's biggest moments, losing out 7 5, 4 6, 1 6, to the World number 1, Serena Williams.
Leander Paes (IND) partnered Martina Hingis (SUI) to the Roland Garros Mixed Doubles title, rallying to win 4-6, 6-4, 10-8 against the No. 2 Seeds Sania Mirza (IND) and Ivan Dodig (CRO). With this win Paes became the third player in the Open Era to win a career Grand Slam in both men’s and mixed doubles
The 42-year-old Paes had won Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open titles in 2015 with Hingis.
It was 18th Grand Slam title for Paes and 10th in the mixed doubles. For 35-year-old Hingis, it was Grand Slam title number 22nd and fifth trophy in the mixed doubles. The other Indian star, Sania Mirza had to contend with the Finalists trophy with Ivan Dodig of Croatia.
Earlier in the week, Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza’s hopes of holding all four grand slam titles were dashed following a 3 6, 2 6 defeat by Czech duo Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova in the third round of the Women’s Doubles.
The Indo-Swiss team dubbed "Santina" were hoping to win four majors in a row after following up last year's Wimbledon and US Open triumphs with victory in January's Australian Open.
Other notable performances of Asian players in the Doubles events were by Treat Huey Conrad (PHI), Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna (IND) in the Men’s Doubles category.
Leander Paes struggling with a loss of Doubles rankings, paired up with Marcin Matkowski of Poland, started as the 16th Seeds and finished on the Quarter Finalist spot losing out to Bryan Brothers of the United States 7 6 (12), 6 3 who eventually lost out in the finals of the Doubles event.
Rohan Bopanna (IND) paring up with Florin Mergea of Romania started off as the 6th Seeds in the Men’s Doubles draw.
In the Quarter Final match, the third seeded pair of Croatia's Ivan Dodig and Brazil's Marcelo Melo defeated the Indo-Romanian sixth seeded pair 6-4, 6-4 in one hour 15 minutes to progress to the semi-finals.
The match began on positive note for both sides as they won their respective games to make it 3-3. But Dodig-Melo broke their opponents' serve at a crucial juncture of both the sets to grab the advantage.
The other notable performance in the Men’s Doubles was from Treat Huey Conrad of Philippines, who paired up with Max Mirnyi of Belarus and started off as the tenth seeds of the draw.
The Filipino Belarusian pair lost to the French pair of Julien Benneteau & Edouard Roger – Vasselin who had earlier beaten the seventh seeds of the draw.
Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi had made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and has won an ATP title this year in Acapulco.
Huey was hoping to surpass his previous career milestone of Men’s Doubles quarterfinals in a Grand Slam event, something he has done three times already, but missed with the Pre Quarter Final loss.
The Asian Women players secured decent spots in the Doubles category with China’s Yifan XU pairing up with Saisai Zheng making the Quarter Finals and Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova reaching the Pre Quarter Finals stage of the 2016 Clay Court Open.
The 9th seeded Chinese pair, advanced to the quarters of the Doubles defeating Serbia's Aleksandra Krunić & Croatia's Mirjana Lučić-Baroni 7-5, 7-5.
They lost in the Quarters to the eventual Semi Finalist pair from Russia Svetlana Kuznetsova & Margharita Gasparyan 6 2, 6 4 in straight sets.
Kazakshtan’s Yaroslava Shvedova and India’s Sania Mirza were the other two Asian players reaching the Pre Quarter Finals stage. Yaroslava Shvedova paired up with Timea Babos of Hungary and started off as the 4th Seeds of the draw.
However they lost to the unseeded Russian pair of Svetlana Kuznetsova & Margharita Gasparyan in three tight sets 6 4, 6 7 (5), 5 7. The very same Russian pair beat the Chinese girls in the next round.
In the Women’s Singles Category, four Japanese players figured in the Main Draw, Kurumi NARA, Nao HIBINO, Naomi OSAKA and Misaki DOI.
In the Men’s Category, the following players appeared in the Main Draw. Yen Hsun Lu (TPE), Hyeon Chung (KOR), Michail Kukukshin (KAZ), Daniel Taro (JPN) & Kei Nishikori (JPN)
Yen Hsun LU got off to a tough draw playing the top seed Novak Djokovic in the first round. It wasn’t going to be easy for LU, who lost to Djokovic straight 4 6, 1 6, 1 6.
Hyeon Chung lost his first round encounter 1 6, 4 6, 4 6 to Quentin Halys (FRA) & so did Michail Kukukshin to Adrian Mannarino 4 6, 6 2, 2 6, 4 6.
The 5th Seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan was the only Men’s Singles player who reached the Pre Quarters stage. Nishikori played a rather tough 3rd round encounter with Fernando Verdasco edging past the Spaniard in five sets.
However a tough Pre Quarter match saw Kei Nishikori (JPN) taking on Richard Gasquet of France on home turf. Gasquet took down the highest ranked Japanese player on the circuit with rather ease 6 4, 6 2, 4 6, 6 2, thus ending the Asian challenge in the Men’s Singles category of the 2016 French Open edition.
In the Juniors under 18, notable performances were recorded by the Korean Yunseong CHUNG who reached the finals of the Boys Doubles event in partnership with Orlando Luz of Brazil.
Yunseong is currently ranked 8th in the world in the Juniors rankings in the Boys category.
Mayuka AIKAWA from Japan reached the Semi Finals of the Girls event in partnership with Ylena In-Albon of Switzerland.
Mayuka is currently placed on the 64th spot in the world junior rankings amongst Girls.
Source:
@BRUDIRECT.COM
by Asian Tennis Federation
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