Van Uytvanck cruises into French Open quarter-finals

Belgian tennis player Alison Van Uytvanck’s extraordinary French Open run has taken her into the quarter-finals, after she beat Andreea Mitu of Romania 6-1, 6-3 in Paris yesterday.

Tomorrow she faces Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky, who yesterday beat Czech fourth seeded Petra Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion. Bacsinszky has three WTO and 12 ITF titles to her name and is currently ranked 21st in the world.

Van Uytvanck, 21, who played her first Grand Slam only last year, was last month ranked a distant 93 by the WTA. She is now one of the final eight at Roland Garros, the first Belgian to reach the quarter-finals at the tournament since Justine Henin won the title in 2007. Van Uytvanck is now just two matches away from the final and a shot at the Suzanne Lenglen trophy.

Whatever the result, Van Uytvanck will leave Paris as Belgium’s new No 1, leapfrogging over both Kirsten Flipkens and Yanina Wickmayer, who both failed to get past the first round in Paris. Van Uytvanck is  the lowest-ranked quarter finalist by far, with the others all in the top 30.