PARIS (AP) — Good thing the French tennis federation installed artificial lights on every court at Roland Garros in 2021, because they sure did come in handy Thursday, allowing match after match to stretch deep into the night, including one particular result that stood out: unseeded American Peyton Stearns' elimination of No. 10 Daria Kasatkina.
All of the waiting around all day to get on court did not disrupt Stearns one bit, and the 22-year-old from Cincinnati, who won an NCAA singles title at the University of Texas, used 17 forehand winners through the cold, damp and slow conditions to defeat Kasatkina 7-5, 6-2 in a match that didn't start until after 9 p.m. and didn't finish until after 10:30 p.m.
“You just kind of don’t know what to expect,” the 62nd-ranked Stearns said about waiting to get on court as showers created a start-stop-start scheduling fiasco all around the grounds. “You have to accept that.”
How did she prepare to finally get started?
“I had a single expresso before I went out there,” she said with a smile. “So it was like morning for me.”
Kasatkina had a harder time with the situation.
“Mentally, it's tough to face the day when it's a long wait,” said Kasatkina, a 2022 semifinalist at the French Open. “You have to be calm, but at the same time, you have to be ready to jump on the court. And you don't know when.”
Other seeded women sent home on a busy day — the match to determine Stearns' third-round opponent was just starting a third set at midnight — included No. 9 Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 champion in Paris, who lost to Denmark's Clara Tauson 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-3; No. 11 Danielle Collins, defeated by Serbian qualifier Olga Danilovic 6-7 (3), 7-5, 6-4; No. 18 Marta Kostyuk, who was beaten 7-5, 6-4 by Donna Vekic; and No. 23 Anna Kalinskaya, eliminated 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 by oft-injured 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu.
This is the fourth tournament for Stearns since she began working with Tom Hill, who used to coach two-time Grand Slam semifinalist Maria Sakkari. Last week, Stearns claimed her first career WTA title, in an event on clay at Rabat, Morocco, celebrating by posing for photos while doing a handstand.
That skills is from her days in gymnastics, a sport her mother, Denise, used to do. Mom — who Stearns said good-naturedly offered some critiques of her form in the pictures — came to Paris with plans to watch just daughter's first-round match, then fly home to Ohio. But a win that day prompted a new flight booking. Now after the win against Kasatkina, Stearns said her mother is sticking around for the third round, too.
“I was like, ‘Look, just stay. Please,” Stearns said with a laugh. “We’ve got to keep this going.”
Nothing too onerous about getting to stay in France while watching your kid win tennis matches, right?
Ah, but Stearns said she put Denise to work.
“She’s running me through my warmups and cool downs. And before my matches, we have a ritual where she’ll fill up my three water bottles and add electrolytes. Keeping her busy," Stearns said. “She jokes, ‘You’re not paying me.' So I said, ‘Hey, I’m paying you in wine.'”
