Paris, June 7: India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden crashed out of the French Open after going down to Italian pair of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori in the semifinals here on Thursday.The second seeded Indo-Australian pair lost 5-7, 6-2, 2-6 to the eleventh seeded Italians.
The Australian Open winning pair overcame the challenge posed by Brazilians Marcelo Zormann and Orlando Luz 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 in the opening round.
They followed that triumph with a win over the Indo-Italian pair of N Sriram Balaji and Miguel Ángel Reyes-Varela 6-7 [2-7], 6-3, 7-6 [10-8]) in the following round.
In the quarterfinals, Bopanna and his partner got the better of the Belgian duo of Sander Gillé and Joran Vliegen 7-6 [7-3], 5-7, 6-1.
Iga Swiatek eliminated Coco Gauff 6-2, 6-4 in the French Open semi-finals Thursday and stretched her winning streak at Roland Garros to 20 matches.
The top-ranked Swiatek is trying to earn her fourth championship in five years in Paris and can become the first woman with three in a row here since Justine Henin from 2007-09.
Swiatek improved to 11-1 overall against No. 3 seed Gauff, the reigning US Open champion, and has defeated her at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament three years in a row, including in the 2022 final and last year’s quarterfinals.
In Saturday’s title match, Swiatek will face either unseeded 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva of Russia or No. 12 Jasmine Paolini of Italy.
Swiatek is 4-0 in major finals so far, and she has been at her dominant best for most of the past two weeks.
Putting aside a three-set, second-round victory over four-time major champion Naomi Osaka when she was forced to save a match point, Swiatek has ceded a total of merely 17 games in her other five matches.