Karolina Pliskova became the latest casualty of the French Open as the second seed tumbled out in straight sets at the hand of Croatia’s Petra Martic.
The Czech second seed entered the event as one of the pre-tournament favourites having won the Italian Open – where she beat Johanna Konta in the final – just a week before.
But she was unable to translate that form into Roland Garros and fell 6-3 6-3 to 31st seed Martic after an hour and 25 minutes.
Pliskova, 27, was broken five times in a match where she made 28 unforced errors, and she accepted it was a bad day at the office.
‘Obviously she’s playing well this year, especially on clay,’ said Pliskova. ‘She won titles so she’s playing confident. She was serving well. She just sometimes went for her shots and then she was patient. I think on clay it’s just too difficult always to just go for it.
‘I don’t know. I think I just didn’t play that well. Maybe I was a little bit, at some points, passive, maybe not that fast. My serve wasn’t really working.
‘I don’t think she did much wrong today, so I think she played clever. She was patient. I just did too many mistakes.
Pliskova’s exit has blown her section of the draw wide open.
One of Marketa Vondrousova, Martic, Veronika Kudermetova, Kaia Kanepi, Elise Mertens and Anastasija Sevastova, but Martic is keeping her feet firmly planted on the ground.
‘I don’t look at it [the draw],’ she smiled. ‘I just go from one match to another, and, yeah, I mean, since I came back, I stopped looking at the draw.
‘I just know my next opponent, and that’s it. Because I think that’s the only way you can kind of keep your focus and keep your calm and perform.
‘I don’t know if Roland Garros has special relationship with me, but I have it with Roland Garros. I really love this tournament. I love this surface. I really feel great here, and I hope for the first time I’ll be able to make the step further.’
