The Belgian Alison van Uytvanck has performed very well at Roland Garros; she has reached the quarter finals. In the first round she met a well known opponent: Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, the Slovak tennis talent. In April in Katowice (the tournament that was won by Anna Karolina) she lost her match against her in the semifinal and earlier this year in Rio the Janeiro she also had to compete Anna Karolina and also lost the match. In Paris things were different: it was a close match decided after a double tie-break, but Alison left the court as a winner. Her strong forehand and service were also to good for Zarina Diyas, although the beginning of the match was tough: she went down in the first set without winning any game. But after this 0-6 she showed her mental strength and came back to win the match (6-1 and 6-4). The next victim was Kristina Mladenovic (who was in the final in Strasbourg against Samantha Stosur). She defeated her in straight sets: 6-4 and 6-1. In the fourth round the Romanian Andreea Mitu was the next tennis player who had to bite the dust of the French clay court: 6-1 (the third time that she produced these convincing figures) and 6-3. Alison was finally stopped in the quarter finals by the Swiss Timea Bacsinszky (4-6 and 5-7). An impressive performance of the 21 years old Alison van Uytvanck, that brought her further in the tournament then big names like Agnieszka Radwanska (lost in the first round from Annika Beck) and Roberta Vinci (lost in the first round form Petra Kvitova). Even the French number one Alizé Cornet, Petra Kvitova and the former winner (2014 and 2012) Maria Sharapova didn’t reached the quarter finals but went out in the fourth round.
Although she lost playing the quarter finals must have been a great moment for Alison van Uytvanck. Nine time winner Rafael Nadal must have had totally different feelings. He lost his quarter final match in straight sets against the number one of the world Novak Djokovic. A great achievement of Djokovic since no one, except for Robin Söderling in 2009, has ever won a match against the king of Roland Garros on the clay of Paris. The other king Roger Federer went also down in the quarter finals against his compatriot Stan Wawrinka. Wawrinka and Djokovic will compete each other in de semi finals. The same goes for the Frenchman Jo Wilfried Tsonga and the British hope Andy Murray.
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