French Open updates | Kasatkina reaches Slam SF for 1st time
PARIS (AP) - The Latest on the French Open tennis tournament (all times local):
2:25 p.m.
Daria Kasatkina advanced to her first Grand Slam semifinal with a 6-4, 7-6 (5) win over Veronika Kudermetova at Roland Garros.
The 20th-seeded Kasatkina will next face either top-ranked Iga Swiatek or 11th-seeded Jessica Pegula.
In a quarterfinal matchup of 25-year-old Russians, Kasatkina built a 6-1 lead in the tiebreaker and finally clinched it on her fifth match point, beating Kudermetova with a backhand drop shot.
The 29th-seeded Kudermetova took a medical timeout to have her left foot taped after she held for a 6-5 lead in the second set. But she then lost nine of the next 10 points before her brief comeback in the tiebreaker.
Kasatkina has not dropped a set in her Roland Garros run. She hit only 16 winners but Kudermetova made 50 unforced errors - twice as many as Kasatkina.
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12:25 p.m.
New French Open tournament director Amelie Mauresmo, a former No. 1 player, says nine of 10 night session matches at Roland Garros this year involved men because women's tennis currently has less appeal.
Mauresmo said at a news conference Wednesday that she tried on a daily basis to find a women's pairing that had the star power or matchup worthy of being highlighted in the separate session that began at 8:45 p.m. local time in Court Philippe Chatrier.
'œI admit it was tough,'ť Mauresmo said.
She is overseeing the clay-court Grand Slam tournament for the first time.
Mauresmo won the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006. After retiring as a player, she moved into coaching and worked with Andy Murray among others.
The only women's match that got the prime-time treatment - new at the French Open this year as part of a deal with a streaming service - was France's Alizé Cornet's victory over Jelena Ostapenko.
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11:45 a.m.
Top-ranked Iga Swiatek puts her 32-match winning streak on the line in one of four quarterfinal matches on Day 11 at the French Open.
Eleventh-seeded Jessica Pegula will try to snap Swiatek's streak in a bid to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal. The 21-year-old Swiatek beat the American in Miami for win number 16 of the current streak.
Swiatek won the 2020 French Open.
The other women's quarterfinal is the first of the day and it's between two Russians: No. 20 Daria Kasatkina and No. 29 Veronika Kudermetova.
No. 7 Andrey Rublev plays No. 20 Marin Cilic in the first men's quarterfinal of the day. Cilic won the 2014 U.S. Open and has been runner-up at the Australian Open and Wimbledon but has never been past the quarterfinals at Roland Garros.
No. 8 Casper Ruud of Norway faces teenager Holger Rune of Denmark in an all-Scandinavian night match. Ruud is 3-0 against the 19-year-old Rune with all three wins coming on clay including at Monte Carlo this season.
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