Jones is surprising!

Yesterday, Francesca Jones scored the biggest win of her career on this court. On her seventh attempt in the main draw of a Grand Slam, the Brit from Bradford came back to beat Haddad Maia 1–6 7–6 6–2 after two hours and forty-two minutes of battle in extreme heat. What the score doesn’t say is that Jones was born with ectrodactyly, a congenital malformation that left her with three fingers on her right hand and four toes on her right foot. Doctors had advised her to avoid high-level tennis. She is now ranked 71st in the world. After more than a year out with a nerve injury in her arm, she reached her first WTA semifinal in Bogotá in April. She comes here carried by genuine emotion and momentum, but with a structural gap in level compared with a seeded player.

Bouzkova rolled to a 6–3 6–1 win in 1h10 yesterday against Bronzetti, without really having to push. Champion in Bogotá on clay in 2026, and a third-round finisher here in each of the last two editions, she knows this tournament and this surface better than anyone else in this match. Coached by Spaniard Marc López since December 2025, she arrives with the consistency of a player for whom the second round feels like her own backyard. Her only real recent misstep: the loss to Ann Li in Strasbourg.