Caroline Wozniacki is still in French Open 2018, but she faces a tough task to come back from a set down against Daria Kasatkina tomorrow after play was suspended for bad light with the second set score at 3-3.
The Dane, who won her first Grand Slam title in Melbourne in January, struggled to get going at the beginning of the match and slipped 3-1 behind.
That scoreline seemed unlikely after the second game, as Kasatkina made four consecutive double faults to drop her serve. However, the Russian recovered and started to play well.
Wozniacki got over her poor start and fought back to 3-3. That seemed to give her a lot of confidence and she played aggressively to break Kasatkina for a 5-3 lead.
But the World No.14 is a determined competitor, and most points in the set were keenly contested, so it was no real surprise to see her break back and level the score.
Kasatkina has a lot of variety in her game, and she was starting to use it to great effect by this stage. She earned a 0-40 advantage on Wozniacki’s serve in game 11, but the Dane hit two excellent winners as she saved all three break points.
Fittingly, it was decided by a tie-break, which turned out to be just as unpredictable as the set itself.
A missed forehand enabled Kasatkina to go 2-0 up. Then the next four points were classic Wozniacki, as she worked the Russian around the court and drew errors from her racket to make it 4-2.
Kasatkina played some terrific tennis to battle back to 5-all, and then the Dane made two awful forehand errors to hand her the set.
Wozniacki and Kasatkina think it is too dark to continue
It had taken 69 minutes to conclude and, two games into the second set, both players decided it was too dark to continue. They asked the umpire if they could leave the court.
The crowd booed loudly and the umpire called the tournament referee, who told Wozniacki and Kasatkina to get on with the tennis and wait for the officials to decide when it was too dark.
The World No.2 seemed more affected by the light than Kasatkina, and she found herself under pressure at deuce on her serve when she was 3-2 behind. However, she managed to hold, and the referee then decided it was time to suspend play.
Stephens and Putintseva reach Last Eight
Whoever wins will take on Sloane Stephens, after the American profited from a crippling attack of nerves for Anett Kontaveit to record an emphatic 6-2 6-0 victory.
The first four games of the match had been close, and it looked set to be an entertaining encounter between two of the sport’s rising stars. But the Estonian became overwhelmed by the occasion and her game rapidly fell apart.
It was a completely different story in the other last-16 match, as Yulia Putintseva stepped up and produced her best tennis to take down Barbora Strycova 6-4 6-3 and reach the French Open quarter-final for the second time in her career.
