Jasmine Paolini was eliminated in the fourth round of Roland Garros on Sunday. The losing finalist from last year missed three match points against Elina Svitolina and lost in three sets (4-6, 7-6 (6) and 6-1).
The fourth-seeded Paolini seemed on her way to an easy victory. She led in the second set with 4-1, but couldn’t maintain the high level. With a 5-4 lead, she missed two match points and in the tiebreak, she missed another match point.
Svitolina did strike in the tiebreak and was much stronger in the third set than the 29-year-old Italian. The thirteenth-seeded Ukrainian reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garros for the fifth time in her career. The previous four times (in 2015, 2017, 2020 and 2023) that was also the final stop.
The best performance of the thirty-year-old Svitolina at a Grand Slam tournament is a semi-final place, at Wimbledon (2019 and 2023) and at the US Open (2019).
The former number three in the world rankings will face the winner of the match between Elena Rybakina and Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals of Roland Garros, who is chasing her fifth final victory in Paris. Last year, the Polish defeated Paolini in the final.
Paolini not only reached the final of Roland Garros last year, but also of Wimbledon. She lost on the London grass to the Czech Barbora Krejcíková.