Well done! Muchova knocks out Avanesjana and still holds the Czech flag at the French Open

The singles at Roland Garros 2023 was not a very successful sporting event from the Czech point of view. Karolína Muchová saves the day. Today she played the eighth round against the young Russian Avanesian. It was a big deal. The 26-year-old Czech has never made it this far at the Paris Grand Slam.

Karolína Muchová is looking to return to the upper echelons of the WTA rankings after a disappointing 2022. The native of Olomouc has been on the borderline of the second and third ten of the ranking for three years. This year has been quite successful for her tennis-wise.

She has passed the first round at all events and not only that. Three times she has been among the top eight tennis players in the tournament. The quarterfinal in Indian Wells is certainly the most valuable, where Mucha’s journey through the tournament was stopped only by world number seven Elena Rybakina. The Czech tennis player is now a solid 43rd in the rankings.

Every match won at a Grand Slam is worth gold and the Czech tennis player has won three times at the French Open.

She won a duel against the tournament’s number eight Sakkari in the final sets, despite a canary in the second set she beat Podoroska in her next appearance and on Friday she also overcame the Romanian Begu on her third attempt. In her fifth appearance at the French Open, she finally broke into the top 16.

Eight-match final

Mucha’s opponent in Sunday’s semi-final was Russia’s Elina Avanesyan. The latter is ranked in the second 100 of the WTA rankings. The 20-year-old Russian has never looked this far at the Grand Slams. The clay part of the year is going very well for her this year, she has a positive record of 16::6. However, almost half of her wins have come at lower ITF events.

Like the Czech, the Russian also defeated a top seeded player in the first round, namely Switzerland’s Bencic. Otherwise, she has come up against acceptable opponents. Karolína Muchová started as the favourite to reach the quarter-finals of Roland Garros.

The opening match on Suzanne Lenglen’s court belonged to the Czech. However, Avanesjanova refined her game and soon two deuces were on the scoreboard. At that point, Muchova started to play better and more varied tennis. The last game of the first set was exemplary, when the Czech player succeeded thanks to an ace, a service followed by a volley and a successful stopball. Set Muchová.

The second set started similarly, but Muchová didn’t allow her opponent to level at 2: 2. Instead, she escaped at 3:1. She held her lead convincingly and after 80 minutes of play went on serve to win the match. The Czech tennis player made very few errors during the match, unfortunately some came in these moments of the match. Because of them she missed two match points.

The next chance to end the match victoriously came in the next game when the Russian served, the first and second attempt failed in this situation as well, the third one was converted by Karolína Muchová after a beautiful backhand exchange and after 6::4, 6::3 sets she secured her promotion among the top eight tennis players.

Next program

The opponent in the quarter-finals will be the Russian Pavlyuchenkova, the former number eleven player in the WTA rankings. She has turned her last three matches in Paris from 0:1 to sets. In the first round, she had a smooth win over Linda Fruhvirtova. Karolína Muchová will have a good opportunity to return the defeat for the Czech colours.

Source: Roland Garros