Agencies
Paris, May 31
Simona Halep showed no sign of joining the casualties at the French Open as she breezed past Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor on Saturday.
The Romanian is the highest seed left in the competition after the shock eliminations of Serena Williams, Li Na and Agnieszka Radwanska. However, she looked in supreme form, thrashing the Spaniard 6-3 6-0 in just over an hour to reach the fourth round.
Halep has won seven WTA Tour titles in the past year and her progression has been matched by best showings at the two grand slams of 2014 so far, having reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
And she was in ominous form on Court Two on Saturday, dominating Torro-Flor from the baseline and moving the Spaniard around the clay at will. Torro-Flor registered 24 unforced errors as a result in the game, and only took six points on the Halep serve in the first set.
The opening game of the second was a much more drawn-out affair on Halep’s serve as Torro-Flor carved out four break points, though the Romanian dug in to save them all and dominate from there on for an impressive victory.Jankovic dominates Cirstea
Jelena Jankovic was in ominous form as she progressed to round four of the French Open with a clinical win over Sorana Cirstea.
With four of the top five seeds having already exited the women’s draw, Jankovic – seeded sixth – has emerged as one of the favourites to triumph on the famous Roland Garros clay, and she set a marker with a 6-1 6-2 Ahead of the encounter, Jankovic had an inferior 3-2 head-to-head record against the Romanian, and had previously lost to Cirstea at the French Open in the fourth round in 2009.
However, there was never any danger of a repeat as the world number seven broke seven times, while she was also aided by 30 unforced errors from the 26th seed.
Cirstea failed to hold serve once in the opening set, Jankovic breaking four times, with her only blip coming when she surrendered serve when leading at 3-0.
It made little difference, however, who had wasted one set point, brought up another chance with a superb two-handed backhand lob and safely wrapped up the opener.
Jankovic made a slow start to the second as Cirstea broke serve then held to move 2-0 ahead. That was as good as it got for the world number 26, however, as Jankovic reeled off six straight games to book a fourth-round date with 10th seed Sara Errani.
