Tennis is World

No. 56 Magda Linette stunned No. 6 seed Ons Jabeur, bouncing the Tunisian star in the first round of the French Open Sunday. The Polish underdog outlasted Jabeur in the two-and-a-half-hour battle, notching a 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-5 three-set win. Linette was only 2-16 against Top 10 opponents heading into Sunday’s contest, falling to Jabeur in the third round of the French Open last year. The unseeded Pole played clean tennis to overcome the No. 6 seed, registering 35 unforced errors to Jabeur’s 47. Jabeur has been dominant on dirt up until Sunday’s upset, winning a tour-leading 17 matches on clay in 2022. “I am just happy I managed to fight for every single point,” said Linette following the match, acknowledging the challenge Jabeur presented on clay. Linette now advances to the second round, where she will face the winner of Martina Trevisan and Harriet Dart.

Irina Khromacheva (26) is a tennis player from Russia who has a career-high doubles ranking of No. 41. In her childhood she was a buoyant and very lively child. Her parents tried to use various developing exercises for her when possible, thus she learned to walk at a quite early age. When she was three years old, she was recorded to the figure skating group. But once when she was training, Irina fell down inauspiciously, and the doctors stated the fracture of the shin, after that she stopped going in for figure skating. Simultaneously with training in figure skating, Irina went to art school. She couldn’t draw very well but she was good at clay modeling. That’s a pity, but tennis lessons didn’t allow her to continue the training. Once, in the summer of 1999, her parents went to Sokolniki Park to play tennis and took Irina with them. During the break they gave Irina a racket, and to their surprise she rapidly started to hit the ball. On their way to home, passing the courts ...