Diego Schwartzman defeats Struff, advances to the final eight
In the first men’s singles match of the day, it was Diego Schwartzman who took down Jan-Lennard Struff in the fourth round at Roland Garros, taking the match in straight sets 7-6(9), 6-4, 7-5.
This was the third career meeting between the two, as Schwartzman now leads the head-to-head 2-1 over Struff after Monday’s victory. With the win, Schwartzman advances to the quarterfinals in back-to-back years, and for the third time in his career at the French.
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Although the score of the match may not look close, this was definitely a battle for Schwartzman, as he was on the court for just over three hours. Even though Schwartzman took the match in three sets, he only won 11 more points than Struff, which shows how close this match really was.
Where Struff will be disappointed is not being able to convert enough on the break point chances he had. Struff had 14 chances to break, which was only one less than Schwartzman, yet only converted six times and was unable to win a set. Out of the 15 break opportunities for Schwartzman, he was able to break Struff’s serve eight times in the match.
One of the reasons why Struff was unable to win on Monday was because of his lack of success at the net. He came into the net an incredible 79 times, yet only won 44 of the points, according to Infosys Match Centre. Schwartzman on the other hand came into the net only 17 times but won 12 of those points.
Struff also had a ton of unforced errors in the match, as he hit 53 unforced errors to go along with just 39 winners. Schwartzman was much better controlling the errors, as he only hit one more unforced error than winners. In the end, there was not much separating these two in the match, but the few errors here and there on key points was the reason why Schwartzman took the match in straight sets.
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Next up for Diego Schwartzman will be the winner between Rafa Nadal and Jannik Sinner, who are set to play later on Monday.