Jessica Pegula, American seeded No. 3, loses at French Open to Elise Mertens

Belgium’s Elise Mertens reacts after beating Jessica Pegula of the U.S. during their third round match of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, on June 2, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Jessica Pegula quickly gathered her belongings and marched out of Court Philippe Chatrier after a 6-1, 6-3 loss to Elise Mertens in the third round Friday at the French Open, a far earlier exit than the No. 3-seeded American has been used to at Grand Slam tournaments lately.

Pegula was a quarterfinalist at four of the five most recent majors, including a year ago at Roland Garros.

She’s never gone further than that stage at a Slam and never really got into this match against the 28th-seeded Mertens on a day with a breeze at about 10 mph (15 kph) and a chill in the low 60s Fahrenheit (low teens Celsius).

“I feel like I was still playing good points. Elise was just being really tough, not making a lot of errors and making me play every single ball. And with the windy conditions, I felt like it definitely played into her game,” said Pegula, whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.

“She returned well and I thought that she used the wind on both sides to her advantage,” Pegula said. “She was playing aggressive on the side with the wind and then, against the wind, I think she was playing some really good defense.” Mertens is a 27-year-old Belgian who was a semifinalist at the 2018 Australian Open and twice has reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals.

But she still has not made it beyond the fourth round on the red clay in Paris. She will attempt to do that when she plays Sunday against 2021 French Open runner-up Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who beat No. 24 Anastasia Potapova 4-6, 6-3, 6-0.

With Pegula joining No. 5 Caroline Garcia, No. 8 Maria Sakkari and No. 10 Petra Kvitova on the sideline, four of the top 10 women’s seeds already are gone. That’s part of a pattern this year at Roland Garros: Only 12 seeds made it through two rounds, the fewest in Paris since the field expanded to 32 seeds in 2002. With the losses by Pegula and Potapova, only 10 remain.

Another woman from the United States joined Pegula on the way out early Friday: Peyton Stearns, the 2022 NCAA champion for the University of Texas, was eliminated by No. 9 Daria Kasatkina 6-0, 6-1 in 55 minutes.

In other early results Friday, No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion in January, won, as did men’s No. 11 seed Karen Khachanov.

Stearns, a big hitter…