The two French women present at the Prague hard tournament, Jessika Ponchet and Léolia Jeanjean, qualified for the second round.
If no Frenchwoman is playing this week the very high tournament of Washington, there are two to take the season on the side of Prague, where a WTA 250 takes place. And they both crossed the first round. Jessika Ponchet, 162nd in the world and Lucky-Loser in the Czech tournament table, faced Nina Stojanovic, 163rd world and Lucky-Loser on Tuesday.
And after a beautiful battle of 2:22, it was the French who won 4-6, 7-5, 6-1. The 28-year-old Bayonnaise was notably helped by the 10 double-fautes of her opponent, who lost his service five times. Ponchet missed out on his start of the match, being carried out 4-1 then 5-2, before giving in to 5-4 on the first set of the Serbian. The Frenchwoman was then breaking at 1-1 in the second round, but she was able to recover to equalize at 2-2, save a break ball at 5-5, and finally Breaker at the best time, at 6-5.
On its momentum, Ponchet signed a start to the third round perfect to lead 5-0, and it won thanks to a white game at 5-1. A great victory for the Basque player, who will win at least 17 places in the classification and will challenge the Czech Palicova (179th) for a quarter in the quarters.
Double joy for Jeanjean
Léolia Jeanjean saw a beautiful start of the week. Monday, the 99th world learned that it would enter directly into the Table of the US Open without having to compete in qualifications, because the world No. 6 and Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng forfeit an elbow operation. And Tuesday, the Hérault of almost 30 years qualified for the round of 16 in Prague benefiting from the abandonment of its opponent Nuria Parrizas-Diaz. Jeanjean led 6-3, 2-0 after 45 minutes of play, after starting the match with a 5-0. But the Spanish, who did not feel well, threw in the towel.
This had already been the case last week at the Iasi tournament in Romania. The next round, Jeanjean will be opposed to the American Ann Li, 67th in the world. Also note this Tuesday the qualification of the seeded n ° 4 Xinyu Wang (6-3, 6-3 against Dart) and the elimination of the seeded n ° 7 Gabriela Ruse (7-5, 6-2 against Siniakova).
