It’s a bitter end for French women’s tennis and for Alizé Cornet. Injured to the adductors, the Niçoise had to give up during her third round at Roland-Garros, Saturday May 28, when she was down 6-0, 3-0.
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There is now no French present in the table in the tournament, after the eliminations of Diane Parry on Friday, and Léolia Jeanjean a little earlier on Saturday. Qinwen Zheng will face world No. 1 and heavy seed Iga Swiatek in the round of 16.
The outcome is hard for the 32-year-old Frenchwoman, who arrived strapped on the court on Saturday, after feeling discomfort in her adductors on the sidelines of her match against Jelena Ostapenko in the second round. Too diminished, far from the level displayed during her first two outings on clay in Paris, Alizé Cornet came under pressure from her opponent from the start of the match. Broken from the start, she was never able to influence the exchanges, and let the first set slip away without registering the slightest game, in just over half an hour (6-0).
The second set started at the same tempo, Zheng breaking from the start, taking the upper hand on a completely outdated Cornet. After calling on the healer for the first time at the start of the round, the Frenchwoman ended up throwing in the towel, 3-0, after 44 minutes of play.
Before the premature end of the match, Qinwen Zheng, who is playing her first Roland-Garros, had been able to press where it was needed to thwart Cornet. Faced with the difficulties of moving the Frenchwoman, she had notably multiplied the amortizations (10 in total). At 19, she qualified for the round of 16 of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her young career.