WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1
Ena Shibahara, who starred for the UCLA women’s tennis team in 2017 and 2018, will play for her first Grand Slam championship Thursday at Roland-Garros. The event’s mixed doubles title is up for grabs Thursday between the second-seeded team of Shibahara and Wesley Koolhof and the pair of Ulrikke Eikerei and Joran Vliegen. The day’s first match on Court Philippe Chatrier will begin at 3 a.m. PT.
Shibahara and Koolhof faced off against Gabriela Dabrowski and John Peers, seeded third, in the semifinal round. After encountering a 1-3 deficit in the first set, Shibahara and Koolhof collected the final five games. They needed just one break of serve in the second, doing so at 1-1 en route to their 6-3, 6-4 victory.
Bruin Jean-Julien Rojer, meanwhile, is in search of a spot in the men’s tennis final. The 12th-seeded combination of Rojer and Marcelo Arevalo takes on No. 15 Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop at 3 a.m. PT on Court Simonne-Mathieu.
MONDAY, MAY 30
Two Bruins reached semifinals Monday at Roland-Garros, as Jean-Julien Rojer and Ena Shibahara were victorious in the men’s and mixed doubles tournaments, respectively.
The 12th-seeded combination of Rojer and Marcelo Arevalo went to a first-set tiebreaker with Rafael Matos and David Vega Hernandez, as neither side was able to break the other’s serve. Rojer and Arevalo built a 5-3 lead in the tiebreaker, only to have Matos and Vega Hernandez run off three consecutive points and place themselves one away from the opening-set triumph. Rojer and Arevalo responded by taking the final three points, though, and went into Set 2 with momentum. They rode that to a break in the first game and that was all that was needed. With their 7-6(6), 6-3 win, Rojer and Arevalo advanced to face Lloyd Glasspool/Harri Heliovaara or Rohan Bopanna/Matwe Middelkoop. This represents Rojer’s third semifinal-round appearance at the French Open, previously accomplishing the feat in 2012 and 2015. He has twice been a semifinalist at the Australian Open (2011, 2015) and took home titles at Wimbledon (2015) and the US Open (2017).
The duo of Shibahara and Wesley Koolhof, seeded second, jumped out to a 3-0 first-set lead with an early break against Matthew Ebden/Samantha Stosur. Holds the rest of the way meant a 6-3 Set 1 win for Shibahara/Koolhof. The pairs alternated breaks…
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