Novak Djokovic breaks tie with Rafael Nadal, doubles team DQ’d as hit strikes

Before unseeded American Sloane Stephens took the court to face No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka, the French Open marketed the matchup as David going against Goliath. But Sabalenka and Stephens are both Grand Slam champions, and it showed on Sunday.

The Belarusian star secured advanced to her first Roland-Garros quarterfinal in a hard fought 7-6(5), 6-4 win. Stephens’ experience in the 2018 final showed when she came back from 0-5 in the first set, pushing it to a tiebreak.

Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion, also stormed back from 4-2 to 4-4 in the second before Sabalenka broke to go 5-4 up and served out for the match.

Sabalenka now leads the tour with 33 match wins. The 2023 Australian Open champion will play Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals.

Doubles team disqualified after ball hits ball girl

No. 16 seed doubles team Miyu Kato of Japan and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia were disqualified from Roland-Garros on Sunday when Kato inadvertently sent a ball flying toward a ball girl during their third-round match.

Per the Associated Press, the ball hit the ball girl in the neck, leaving her in tears. It made contact when the ball girl wasn’t looking as she walked off the court. The hit was clearly an accident.

Umpire Alexandre Juge initially gave Kato a warning. Tournament referee Remy Azemar and Grand Slam supervisor Wayne McEwen then issued the disqualification after reviewing video of the incident, AP reports.

Kato and Sutjiadi lost the opening set to Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo, but they were up 3-1 in the second when Kato’s unintentional hit left the ball girl in tears.

Bouzkova said after the match that she asked Juge “to look into it more and ask our opponents what they think happened” in the immediate aftermath of the incident. She also called it a “bad situation.”

“It’s just a bad situation for everyone,” Bouzkova said, per AP. “But it’s kind of something that, I guess, is taken by the rules, as it is, even though it’s very unfortunate for them. … At the end of the day, it was the referee’s decision.”

She said that she heard an official say that the ball “has to do some kind of harm to the person affected” to warrant a disqualification when explaining the judgment.

Novak Djokovic breaks tie with Rafael Nadal

On Roland-Garros’ opening day, Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic told reporters that the odd year without Rafael Nadal represented a new title opportunity. A week later, Djokovic secured his place in the French Open quarterfinals in record fashion.

With a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win over Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas on Sunday, he has reached the quarterfinals for the 14th consecutive year, the longest streak by a man in the event’s history. Roger Federer made the second-most uninterrupted appearances,…