Fifth seed Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium celebrated her 24th birthday by reaching the third round of the French Open on Thursday.
PARIS: Title-holder and fifth seed Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium celebrated her 24th birthday by reaching the third round of the French Open on Thursday.
But she had to endure miserable weather conditions and her own lack of match practice before finally disposing of Anastasia Yakimova of Belarus 6-2 7-5. She next plays the winner of the tie between Alize Cornet of France and Tathiana Garbin of Italy for a place in the last 16.
“I don’t remember a day like this before when I played under the rain and I was freezing,” she said. “It was very cold and I had to put on long sleeves in the second set. It was like being in Belgium in November. The tie was to all intents and purposes a Grand Slam mismatch with the 23-year-old two-times former champion here going up against a 19-year-old novice who had never made it past the first round.
The Belgian, who had a quiet lead-in to Paris in order to conserve her energies and suspect physique, quickly led 2-0 before dropping her own serve. But she then won four out of the next five games to wrap up the opening set in 43 minutes. The 58th-ranked player from Minsk took advantage of some sloppy play from Henin-Hardenne to take a 2-0 lead at the start of the second set, but she was immediately reeled in as the Belgian champion switched gears to take the next four games. But Yakimova won the next three games including two breaks of serve. She then had three set points on her own serve at 5-4 40-0 but Henin-Hardenne dug deep to level the scores and then wrapped up the tie by winning the next two games.
Meanwhile, Lleyton Hewitt and Anastasia Myskina, two players with plenty to prove at the French Open, moved into the third round on Thursday.
Hewitt, the former world number one, overcame a difficult first set before seeing off French wildcard Mathieu Montcourt 7-5 6-3 6-3 and now faces Slovakian 22nd seed Domimik Hrbaty for a place in the last 16. Myskina, the 2004 winner, eased past Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-2 6-4. The Russian 10th seed now takes on Serbian 19th seed Ana Ivanovic.
Britain’s interest in the tournament ended when Tim Henman was knocked out by Russian 31st seed Dmitry Tursunov. Henman went down 6-3 6-2 4-6 6-4, his third successive loss to Tursunov in the last three Grand Slam tournaments.
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