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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
Sport

Teenagers take over at French Open as Fernandez and Gauff reach last 16

Coco Gauff reached the last 16 at the French Open for the second successive year following a straight sets win over the veteran Estonian Kaia Kanepi. © Pierre René-Worms/ RFI

Nineteen-year-old Leylah Fernandez and 18-year-old Coco Gauff reached the last 16 at the French Open on Friday after wins over Belinda Bencic and Kaia Kanepi respectively.

Fernandez, who reached the US Open final last September, battled for nearly three hours to see off the 14th seed from Switzerland.

It finished 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 to the Canadian who recovered her poise after serving for the match at 5-4 in the decider and comprehensively fluffing her lines to let Bencic claim her serve.

But Bencic was no better.

She failed to exploit the reprieve and dropped her own service to give Fernandez another chance to reach the last-16.

Success

At the second time of asking, she succeeded and will play in the fourth round for the first time.

Gauff boasts experience of the second week in Paris. The American was cool in her careful dissection of the veteran Estonian Kaia Kanepi who had beaten the former champion Garbine Muguruza in the opening round.

"I knew it was going to be a tough match," said Gauff after the 6-3, 6-4 victory on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

"Kaia beat Garbine earlier in the week and we'd played a really close match on clay in Italy last year."

Elsewhere in the women's draw, the unseeded Russian Aliaksandra Sasnovich dispatched the 21st seed Angelique Kerber and 31st seed Elise Mertens advanced to the last 16 at the expense of Varvara Gracheva from Russia.

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