American underdog Shelby Rogers has knocked out 25th seed Irina Camelia Begu 6-3, 6-4, to reach the quarter-finals of the French Open.
The world No.108 is yet to win a title on the WTA Tour and had never been beyond the second round at Roland Garros before this year. Despite the odds being against her, she broke Begu on five occasions with the help of 15 winners to seal the straight sets win after only 81 minutes of play.
“This is an incredible moment for me,” the 23-year-old said during her on-court interview.
“I always dreamt that this would happen, but I wasn’t sure that it could.” She later added.
Rogers shock run in Roland Garros has also included wins over Karolina Pliskova (first round) and Petra Kvitova (third round). She is only the ninth woman ranked outside the top-100 to reach the last eight at the French Open since 1983. The last player to achieve this milestone was Yaroslava Shvedova in 2012, who was ranked 142nd in the world.
In the last eight Rogers will play fourth seed Garbine Muguruza, who defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova in her fourth round match. It will be the first meeting on the tour between the two players. Muguruza will be the fourth seeded player that the American had played in the tournament. Rogers has only defeated one top-10 player in her career, which was Eugenie Bouchard at the 2014 Montreal Open.
At the start of this year, Rogers started her season playing at two low-level ITF $25,000 events in America. Leading up to the French Open, she has only defeated one top-100 player, which was Mariana Duque-Marino (74) during the qualifying rounds of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. At the Rio Open in February, she reached her second WTA final where she lost in three sets to Italy’s Francesca Schiavone.
The 23-year-old, who grew up being a ball girl at the Charleston Open, will now be ranked in the world’s top-60 for the first time in her career. Her previous ranking best was 70th.
Quarterfinals!!!!!!! @rolandgarros Thank you Paris for this moment! @ASICSTennis @WilsonTennis pic.twitter.com/46rSuMCQcw
— Shelby Rogers (@Shelby_Rogers_) 29 May 2016
