Alize Cornet Delivers for France at Roland Garros

Seventeen-year-old Team Elite member Alize Cornet survived the pressure of expectations and a slow start in Sunday’s French Junior Championships girls' singles final to give France a homegrown champion at Roland Garros.

The second-seeded Cornet, who plays with a Flexpoint Radical MP, defeated unseeded Mariana Duque-Marino of Columbia 4-6, 6-1, 6-0 to capture her first junior Grand Slam title. Cornet showed an admirable fighting spirit in the semifinals as well; against No. 6 seed Ksenia Milevskaya of Belarus, the right-hander from Nice battled back to earn her spot in the final with a gritty 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory. Cornet, ranked inside the WTA Top 120 when the French Junior Championships began, received a wild card in the women’s main draw at Roland Garros, falling to No. 26 seed Venus Williams 6-4, 6-3 in the first round.

Jonathan Eysseric, another French Team Elite member, reached the finals of the boys’ doubles competition at Roland Garros. Eysseric, who occupied the No. 1 spot in ITF Junior World Rankings earlier this year, teamed with American Kellen Damico to advance to the final, where the pair dropped a 6-4, 6-0 decision to Italy’s Thomas Fabbiano and Andrei Karatchenia of Belarus. The left-handed Eysseric, 17, also put his Flexpoint Prestige Mid to good use while serving as a hitting partner for world No. 1 Roger Federer in the weeks leading up to the French Championships.

Team Elite member Matteo Trevisan of Italy also showed excellent form in Paris, reaching the semifinals before falling to Australian Greg Jones in a three-set, three-hour marathon. The 2007 Italian Open Junior champion, playing with a Flexpoint Prestige Mid, also advanced to the quarterfinals of the doubles competition with partner Roman Jebavy of the Czech Republic before falling to the eventual champions.

In wheelchair singles, world No. 1 Esther Vergeer of the Netherlands, who plays with a Flexpoint Instinct, captured the Women’s title in the sport’s debut at Roland Garros. With her victory, Vergeer has extended her string of consecutive wins to 252.

The men’s doubles competition also showcased HEAD player Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. Knowles, playing a Flexpoint Prestige MP, teamed with Daniel Nestor of Canada to defeat Czechs Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. Knowles and Nestor have now won three of the four Grand Slam titles, needing only Wimbledon to complete the career slam. France’s Fabrice Santoro, wielding a Flexpoint Radical MP and Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic, using his Flexpoint Prestige MP, reached the men’s doubles semifinals. Zimonjic also contributed to the Serbian surge at this year’s Roland Garros by reaching the mixed doubles final with Slovakian Katarina Srebotnik.