Sloane Stephens plays a forehand at the 2019 French Open on June 02, 2019 in Paris.
Sloane Stephens came so close to a French Open title in 2018, and this year she’s well on her way to getting another shot.
Of the eight women moving on to the quarterfinals round, three are American and Stephens is the highest seeded among them at No. 7. Stephens, last year’s runner up, defeated No. 19 Garbine Muguruza of Spain 6-4, 6-3 in Sunday’s fourth-round match to claim her spot amongst the dwindling number of competitors left at Roland Garros.
Joining her are No. 14 Madison Keys and 17-year-old Amanda Anisimova, who becomes the youngest U.S. woman to reach the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam since Jennifer Capriati in 1993.
Stephens is now two wins away from returning to the final after dispatching Muguruza, the 2016 French Open champion. It took five match points to close things out, but Stephens will now face Great Britain’s Johanna Konta in the quarterfinals.
Keys dispatched Katerina Siniakova with a tidy 6-2, 6-4 victory that took just over one hour to complete to move into the quarterfinals. Her Czech challenger scored a major upset earlier in the tournament by ousting top seed Naomi Osaka, but Keys had perhaps her strongest match of the tournament thus far to earn her way to the next round. Her next opponent will be No. 8 seed Ashleigh Barty of Australia, whom she defeated in their only previous meeting two years ago at the French Open.
It was Barty who ended Sofia Kenin’s run. The 20-year-old American was back on the court two days after ousting four-time Olympic champion Serena Williams in a third-round upset. Although Kenin, a 2014 Youth Olympian for Team USA, fought back to win the second set after falling in the first, Barty swept the decider for a 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 victory.
Rounding out the U.S. contingent in the quarterfinals is Anisimova, who beat Spain’s Aliona Bolsova 6-3, 6-0. She will face No. 3 Simona Halep of Romania, the defending champion, in the quarterfinals.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
