The young Frenchwoman Diane Parry (21 years old) qualified for the round of 16 of the WTA 1000 in Indian Wells (California, United States) by dominating the Russian Anna Blinkova on Monday, while at the same time Caroline Garcia was dominated by the Greek Maria Sakkari (6-3, 6-4).
Diane Parry, 61st player in the world, quickly erased a break behind to largely dominate the game against Blinkova (45th in the world), erased in two controlled sets (6-4, 6-3). Parry has already completed three rounds in California even though she had never qualified for the main draw of a WTA 1000, the second most competitive category of competition after the Grand Slams.
On the other hand, she had already reached the 3rd round of a Grand Slam tournament three times, notably in January at the Australian Open. She will be at worst 55th in the world next week, her best ranking so far was 58th. “I’m a little perplexed about the match, I had strange feelings at the start of the match,” she commented. “She was well into it, then suddenly she made double faults, that put me back in, I broke and moved on. In terms of play it was far from my best level, but I’m happy to be able to win this kind of matches, when we don’t have good feelings (…) It’s the first time that I went straight into a WTA 1000 table, it’s cool, I hope it’s not over. I didn’t really have a goal, I’m happy to see myself reach this stage, I hope to progress further.
She will face Greek world number 9 Maria Sakkari on Wednesday in the round of 16, who eliminated Caroline Garcia. Broken at the start of the first set, Garcia (26th) returned to 2-2 but lost his commitment again at 4-3 and then the set immediately, before losing his first two faceoffs at the start of the second set . Lacking confidence after three defeats in the first round of competitions in the Middle East in recent weeks, Garcia (30) faltered against the Greek, an opponent who had beaten her three times last year.
“I am obviously disappointed with the match, afterward, compared to the last weeks and the last tournaments, we had adapted our expectations,” analyzed the Frenchwoman afterwards. “It’s disappointing to lose but Maria had a good match, she’s a player who is in the 10s (…) I wasn’t very precise and I didn’t go all out on certain shots , with confidence, obviously I don’t have much at the moment. It’s a match where there are opportunities, she was more opportunistic and more solid to erase some mistakes that I made at important moments.