Top seeds ousted after wins for Bailly and Bartunkova
Gilles Arnaud Bailly and Nikola Bartunkova provided the biggest shocks of the Roland Garros junior tournament so far, with pair defeating the No. 1 seeds and Australian Open champions, Bruno Kuzuhara and Petra Marcinko, to advance to the quarter-finals.
Both Bailly and Bartunkova are players of some repute themselves – but the results still came as a surprise after the level that Kuzuhara and Marcinko had displayed in their opening two singles matches in Paris.
“That was an unbelievable match,” Bailly enthused afterwards – and he was not wrong. A packed Court 7 crowd witnessed one the comebacks of the tournament so far, with Bailly saving three match points in the second set tie-break before eventually recording a 3-6 7-6(8) 6-4 triumph in two hours and 29 minutes.
Bartunkova’s match against Marcinko, played on the adjacent Court 9, also swung back and forth, with Bartunkova pegged back when serving for both sets. But the Czech, seeded No. 13, proved the stronger player at the tight end of both sets, winning 7-6(5) 7-5 in one hour and 46 minutes.
For Bailly, a Belgian ranked at No. 20 in the ITF junior rankings, he can now add a Roland Garros quarter-final appearance to a season which has already seen him claim two titles on clay at Grade 1-level.
“Normally my favourite surface is hard court,” he laughed. “But I just played around to get used to the clay and that went well. I'm building a lot of confidence here. It's great to win this match.”
Bailly’s victory has set up a last eight clash against Swiss qualifier Dylan Dietrich, who defeated another Top 10 seed on Wednesday – having previously overcome No. 6 Gonzalo Bueno in his opening match, he secured an impressive 7-6(6) 3-6 6-4 win over No. 9 Edas Butvilas in the third round.
For Bartunkova, a quarter-final match-up against No. 12 seed Nikola Daubnerova, of Slovakia, now awaits her on Thursday. And while she is taking things one match at a time, Bartunkova said that she would be thrilled to lift the trophy on Saturday.
“It’s special for me because it's a Grand Slam, it's different from all the other tournaments,” she explained. “Grand Slams and Roland Garros… for me, they are special. If I win, it will be great.”
As for her performance against Marcinko, Bartunkova was pleased to have made it past such a daunting opponent.
“The first set was very tough for me because she is such a good player,” she said. “So I knew I must play good tennis. I was 5-3 up and then it was 5-5, but I managed to win the first set. And the second set, it was the same. So yeah, I am really happy.”
She has every right to be delighted. And while there is still a long way to go, both Bartunkova and Bailly will surely be confident that they can beat anyone now.
In addition to Bartunkova's quarter-final meeting with Daubnerova, Thursday will also see quarter-final ties between Liv Hovde and Solana Sierra; Lucie Havlickova and Annabelle Xu; and Sara Bejlek and Mirra Andreeva.
The remaining boys' singles quarter-finals will see Martyn Pawelski play Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez; Dino Prizmic face Daniel Merida Aguilar; and Peter Benjamin Privara takes on Gabriel Debru.