Garbine Muguruza comes through against Francesca Schiavone in Paris

29 May 2017 12:09

Garbine Muguruza survived a tricky first hurdle to open her French Open title defence with a 6-2 6-4 victory over 2010 winner Francesca Schiavone.

Muguruza and Schiavone are two of the three former champions in the draw along with Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Schiavone is now 36 and announced in January this will be her last year on the tour. But she remains a difficult customer on clay and booked her place in the draw here with a title in Bogota last month.

Muguruza is the latest female player to burst out of the pack only to struggle under the weight of expectation.

Instead of taking over the mantle from Serena Williams, as some leading names predicted when she defeated the American in the final last year at Roland Garros, Muguruza has failed to reach a single final since.

She at least arrived in Paris with some confidence in the bank after making the semi-finals in Rome last week before pulling out with a neck injury.

The Spaniard made a fine start to this match, winning the opening three games, but Schiavone pulled back to 3-2 before a lengthy delay after a spectator was taken ill in the crowd.

On the resumption, Muguruza won 12 straight points to take the set and then went an early break up in the second.

Schiavone again responded but Muguruza broke to lead 5-4 and came through a long final game to set up another tricky encounter with Estonia's Anett Kontaveit, one of the form players of the clay season.

Source: PA