PARIS — It’s a good thing the French tennis federation installed lights on every court at Roland Garros in 2021.
They sure did come in handy Thursday at the French Open, allowing match after match to stretch deep into the night, including one particular result in women’s singles that stood out: Peyton Stearns, an unseeded American, eliminating No. 10 Daria Kasatkina in the second round.
All of the waiting around all day to get on court did not disrupt Stearns at all, and the 22-year-old from Cincinnati, who won an NCAA singles title in 2022 at the University of Texas, used 17 forehand winners through the cold, damp, slow conditions to defeat Kasatkina 7-5, 6-2 in a match that didn’t start until after 9 p.m. and didn’t finish until after 10:30.
“You just kind of don’t know what to expect,” the 62nd-ranked Stearns said about waiting to get on court as showers created a start-stop-start scheduling fiasco all around the grounds for the clay-court Grand Slam tournament. “You have to accept that.”
How did she prepare to finally get started?