Kops-Jones storms into the third round at the French Open
After days and days of sitting around in the rain and waiting to see if they would even get into the draw, the doubles Team of Raquel Kops-Jones and Natalie Grandin have stormed into the 3 rd Round of the Womens doubles at Roland Garros. After competing in the Womens qualifying draw and both losing tight matches, Kops-Jones and Grandin were the last team out of the draw and the unfortunate first alternate team for the Womens doubles.
However as fate would have it and after sitting through 2 straight days of rain, their hard work and patience was rewarded with a team withdrawing. As soon as the joy of getting into the draw had sunk in, the reality was that they were to play the 13 th seeds in their first ever French Open main draw match.
Playing against the 13 th seeds on court 9 in their first match together at Roland Garros, Kops-Jones and Grandin were completely overwhelmed losing the first set 6-1. The second set didn't start too much better, with the pair going down an early break before recovering and winning a tight second set 7-5. It appeared that the experience of the 13 th seeds would be too much for Kops-Jones and Grandin when they took what seemed to be an unassailable 5-1 lead in the 3 rd set. But the determined team of Kops-Jones and Grandin kept fighting, and in an extraordinary finish to the match and nearly 3 hours later, they had their first every victory at the French Open, and an improbable victory, recovering from a 1-5, 3 rd set deficit to defeat the 13 th seeds 1-6, 7-5, 7-5.
Straight off their exciting victory over the 13 th seeds yesterday, Kops-Jones and Grandin took on the Czech team of Voracova and Hradecka. The match was a direct contrast to yesterdays match with Kops-Jones and Grandin getting off to a much more confident start holding and breaking early and winning the first set 6-3. In the second set Kops-Jones and Grandin dominated on serve and at the net, overpowering their opponents for a 6-3 6-0 victory and will now face the 4 th seeds and former Australian Open and US Open finalists on court 1 tomorrow.
