Roland Garros, Giorgi-Kasatkina in the round of 16

Martina Trevisan made it, now it’s up to Camila Giorgi. There could be two Italian tennis players in the quarter-finals of Roland Garros, among the last eight players to compete for the chance to win on the land of Paris. A goal that, of course, would be a huge boast for Italian tennis. Trevisan won again in two sets, against Aljaksandra Sasnovič; Giorgi will face Daria Kasatkina, Russian tennis player number 20 in the world and fresh from the semifinal at the Internazionali d’Italia, with the defeat against Ons Jabeur. How many chances does Camila have to win this match too?

The only challenge

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Let’s start from the previous ones: there was only one match between these two players. And a bit of time has passed: March 6, 2020, quarter-finals on the cement of Lyon. The winner was Kasatkina, in three sets: 6-2 4-6 6-2. The Russian tennis player was then eliminated in the semifinals by the German Anna Lena Friedsam, while for Giorgi it was the last game played before the break on the circuit due to the Covid emergency: the first official match of the Macerata tennis player after that defeat was played in August, on the beaten earth of Palermo. Another very different surface and context: so the only challenge between these two players was played.

In Paris

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Kasatkina has gone very fast so far at Roland Garros: no sets lost and all games won easily (6-2 6-0 in Sramkova, 6-0 6-3 in Contreras and 6-3 6-2 in Rogers). Giorgi had to fight more, but he also had to face much more trying commitments: above all the third round match against Aryna Sabalenka, seeded number 7, with the comeback victory in three sets after losing the first (4- 6 6-1 6-0). For Camila it would be the first quarter-final in her career at Roland Garros, while Kasatkina has already made it in 2018, when she was defeated by Sloane Stephens: in the same year, both players reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. Now there is only room for one of the two: whoever wins will find Kudermetova or Keys.