Routliffe and Rosolska cruise into third round at Roland Garros

New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe and her Polish partner Alicja Rosolska are through to the third round of the women’s doubles at the French Open in Paris. 

The unseeded duo has thumped American Kaitlyn Christian and Belarussian Lidziya Marozava 6-2 6-2 in an hour and 4 minutes. 

Routliffe and Rosolska were dominant from the outset and had break points in Marozava’s opening service game but couldn’t convert. After Routliffe held easily she and Rosolska broke Christian, a former doubles partner of Routliffe’s for a 2-1 lead and they never looked back. 

They were untroubled on serve throughout and only faced three break point in the entire match and they came in the final game. They broke Christian again for a 5-2 lead before Rosolska served out the opening set in 27 minutes. 

Games went with serve until the 5^th game of the second set when Rosolska put away a good smash to break Marozava for the first time in the match. Routliffe and Rosolska took control and after the Kiwi held easily, they broke Christian again and after saving a trio of break points Rosolska closed out a comfortable win. 

The draw has really opened up for Routliffe and Rosolska with top seed and defending Roland Garros singles and doubles champion Barbora Krajeckova forced out of the doubles after contracting Covid-19.  Instead of probably facing her and Katerina Siniakova in the third round, Routliffe and Rosolska will play either Belgian Greet Minnen and Hungary’s Anna Bondar or Hungary's Dalma Galfi and Russian Anna Kalinskaya.

Meanwhile Michael Venus and his German partner Tim Puetz will play their third-round men’s doubles match on Sunday night. The 7^th seeds will face 12^th seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Marcelo Arevalo for a place in the quarter finals.