Muguruza down and out in Paris as Mladenovic marches on

Muguruza 1-2 Mladenovic: match summary

French number one Kristina Mladenovic delighted the crowd on Suzanne Lenglen with a three-set victory over defending champion Garbiñe Muguruza on Sunday, taking the possibility of a first home-grown winner of the French Open since 2000 into the second week of the tournament.

Mladenovic, seeded 13, triumphed 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals, where she will be joined by at least one compatriot when Caroline Garcia and Alizé Cornet meet in the fourth round, marking the first time since 1994 that France has had more than one representative in the last eight of the women's draw.

Mary Pierce was the last Frenchwoman to lift the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen and Maldenovic's performance in defeating the world number five will lead to quiet confidence that the current national number one can emulate that achievement with the draw having opened wide in Paris. 

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Mladenovic had to contend not only with Muguruza's power-hitting but also her own serve as she battled to victory in just under two hours, coughing up 16 double faults and landing only 15 percent of her first serves. However, the defending champion was unable to capitalize fully as her broadsides often failed to find their mark. Muguruza clocked up 33 unforced errors and despite targeting Mladenovic's second serve failed to win as many points as her opponent on the slower delivery. 

Mladenovic will go on to face Timea Bacsinszky in the last eight after the 30th seed knocked out Venus Williams, the last surviving former champion in the draw, shortly after Muguruza exited a sun-kissed Suzanne Lenglen under a metaphorical cloud.

Muguruza 1-2 Mladenovic: as it happened

Garbiñe Muguruza will face the toughest test of this year’s tournament so far when she takes on French number one and the home support’s great hope of Roland Garros 2017, Kristina Mladenovic, in the fourth round.

The defending champion has struggled to find her feet on the crushed brick in Paris but showed glimpses of the destructive ground strokes she deployed last year in sweeping to her first Grand Slam title in her previous match against Yulia Putintseva, a classic little-and-large match-up against a scurrying opponent whose game is characterized by an ability to get everything thrown at her back into court.

Muguruza was also give an almighty run-around by the always dangerous Anett Kontaveit in the previous round, dropping the first set on a tie-break before imposing herself on her unseeded opponent to take the next two for the loss of six games.

Roland Garros embraces Mladenovic as heir to Mary Pierce

However, as Muguruza observed after her win over Putintseva, there are few easy games in the Grand Slam format and every hard-fought victory imbues greater confidence both in hitting and mental fortitude for tests to come. The 23-year-old will require every weapon at her disposal when she takes to a partisan Suzanne Lenglen on Sunday, with the boisterous home fans ready to cheer the new darling of Roland Garros to the rafters in a game between two players aiming to outgun each other from the back of the court.

Mladenovic has reached the fourth round via the hardest possible route, almost going out in the first round to unseeded American Jennifer Brady but prevailing 9-7 in a nail-biting final set. After that scare the 13^th seed said the crowd had seen her over the line and it was the same story in the third round when Mladenovic recovered from 2-5 down in the third set to beat Shelby Rogers 7-5, 4-6, 8-6.

Joining Mladenovic in the last 16 are Alizé Cornet and Caroline Garcia, the first time three home-grown players have reached that stage of the tournament since Julie Halard, Mary Pierce and Alexia Dechaume in 1994. But it is on Mladenovic that most French hopes have been placed and the 24-year-old appears ready to assume the mantle vacated by Pierce, the last French winner at Roland Garros in 2000 – not least because Cornet and Garcia face each other in the fourth round.

Muguruza unbeaten since 2015 quarterfinals

Mladenovic has never before been past the third round at Roland Garros and momentum – and the crowd – will be on her side. But Muguruza is now a seasoned campaigner and on a run of 10 straight victories at the French Open stretching back to the 2015 quarterfinals when, seeded 21, she lost to eventual finalist Lucie Safarova, who took a set off Serena Williams in the final.

The winner of Sunday’s match will go on to face either Venus Williams or Timea Bacsinszky for a place in the quarterfinals in one of the most open draws in recent memory. The absence of Serena, Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka has been added to by early exits for world number one Angelique Kerber, seventh seed Johanna Konta and ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska.

That is something that all the remaining players will have in the backs of their minds as the fourth round gets underway but for Muguruza, as the defending champion, there will be slightly fewer nerves when she knocks up with Mladenovic. But as she has shown already in Paris, the 13^th seed possesses a ferocious competitive spirit and with the crowd firmly on her side an upset cannot be ruled out.