Time catches up with Japan’s Date-Krumm
World number 83 Kimiko Date-Krumm saw age catch up with her on Tuesday as the 42-year-old Japanese slid out at the French Open, losing her opening round match to Australian ninth seed Samantha Stosur.
The veteran strove as best she could but was no match for former US Open champion Stosur, who romped to a 6-0, 6-2 victory in just 1hr 04min.
It was only in the fourth game of the second set that Date-Krumm finally got on the scoresheet as she triumphantly held serve and broke out into a relieved grin.
But Stosur, losing finalist three years ago, was not going to allow a possible upset to develop. And she promptly closed the door against a rival who at 42 years and 240 days became the third oldest player to compete in women’s singles in the tournament — Martina Navratilova holding the record at 47 and 232 days from her 2004 showing.
Fully 57 players in this year’s women’s singles draw were not even born when Date-Krumm made her Roland Garros debut just a year shy of a quarter of a century ago, in 1989.
Six years after that, she went down in the semi-finals to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and that remains the Kyoto-born player’s best showing in 12 attempts on the slow red clay in the French capital.
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