US Open: Biterrois Richard Gasquet, Alizé Cornet and Clara Burel will be there for the 3rd round

They join Caroline Garcia and Corentin Moutet who qualified on Wednesday. So that of the 18 Habs competing at the start, five are in the third round and will try to reach the knockout stages. Alizé Cornet (40th in the world) was scared but she passed.

After being clearly dominated in the second round, the 32-year-old Niçoise regained the upper hand to eliminate the Czech Katerina Siniakova (83rd) 6-1, 1-6, 6-3. She will face for a place in the round of 16 the American Danielle Collins (19th), the same one who at the start of the season had put an end to the most beautiful course of the Frenchwoman in Grand Slam, in the quarter-finals at the Open d ‘Australia. Cornet never made it past the round of 16 in New York and remained on elimination as soon as he entered the competition in 2021.

?? YES ALIZE!

Physically in agony, the Niçoise goes to the end of herself and manages to get rid of Siniakova to slip away in the third round!@alizecornet #US Open #HomeOfTennis pic.twitter.com/YZBo3VNveI

— Eurosport France (@Eurosport_FR) September 1, 2022

In addition to her quarter in Melbourne, she was then beaten in the 3rd round at Roland-Garros and in the round of 16 at Wimbledon where she had dismissed world No.1 Iga Swiatek in the third round, thus ending a series of 37 victories. consecutive from the Polish.

Cornet set a new record of 63 consecutive Grand Slam appearances in New York, bettering the one she co-held from Wimbledon with Japan’s Ai Sugiyama. Clara Burel, 131st in the world and qualified, confirmed her achievement in the first round where she beat the winner of the last Wimbledon Elena Rybakina: Thursday, she dismissed the Belgian Alison van Uytvanck (43rd), 6-4, 4-6 , 6-4.

Burel continues to surprise

For her second New York Major at 21 (elimination in the first round in 2021), she will face Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, 6th in the world and semi-finalist in 2021, to try to climb to the round of 16. This season, Burel was eliminated in the first round of the first three Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon). His best Major result to date is the third round reached at Roland-Garros in 2020. Richard Gasquet (91st) pulled out all the stops to dominate Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic (36th) 6-2, 6-4, 4-6 , 6-4.

“It’s a big victory for me, because he’s a great player,” commented the 36-year-old Frenchman. “I had a little sore knee in the third set but I managed to fight in the fourth,” he admitted. Gasquet reached the last four at Flushing Meadows in 2013, but hasn’t made it past the third round since 2018.

Gasquet will find Nadal in the round of 16

Quarter-finalist last week in Winston Salem, where he narrowly missed reaching the semi-finals, and winner of a grueling match in the first round in New York in very high heat, Gasquet again showed a great fighting spirit on Thursday to dismiss Kecmanovic, relying in particular on his exceptional one-handed backhand.

In total, he landed 61 winners. “The conditions were favorable to me: a lot of wind, the fast court, it changed my game. I don’t change my shoes, not my socks… it’s stupid, but it’s much less difficult on the side physical for me, even if the match was hard”, commented the Biterrois.

“I did the first set and it gave me courage. And you don’t let go after that, you have a morale of steel,” he said, acknowledging that he was tired. He will be opposed for a place in the round of 16 to the Spaniard Rafael Nadal (3rd), whom he has never beaten in seventeen confrontations on the main circuit, or to the Italian Fabio Fognini (60th).