Simona Halep (click to enlarge)
While the Roland Garros 2017 quarterfinalists in the top half of the draw are all worthy players but lacking in top 10 seeds, the bottom half of the draw has 3 of the top 5 seeds, including arguably the favorite, 3rd seed Simona Halep. She sure looked awesome in crushing Carla Suarez Navarro, 6-1 6-1. As good as Halep looked, this isn’t golf where a great score one day carries over to the next round. It will be 0-0 when Simona takes on 5th seed Elina Svitolina in the quarters. Either of them is capable of going all the way. 2nd seed Karolina Pliskova has quietly moved through the draw. It’s about to get a lot louder when she takes on France’s Caroline Garcia. Will the French crowd turn on Pliskova like they did with Garbiñe Muguruza? It might not work with Karolina, who beat Serena Williams at last year’s US Open with a partisan American crowd against her.
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3 SIMONA HALEP d. 21 Carla Suarez Navarro, 6-1 6-1
2 KAROLINA PLISKOVA d. Verónica Cepede Royg, 2-6 6-3 6-4
28 CAROLINE GARCIA d. Alizé Cornet, 6-2 6-4
5 ELINA SVITOLINA d. Petra Martić, 4-6 6-3 7-5
Fairways and Forehands 