Third-seed littered Court Suzanne Lenglen with dozens of unforced errors but still beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich in their Belarusian battle 7-5 6-3 on Wednesday to move into the third round of the .
Sabalenka, who won her first claycourt title in Madrid last month and also reached the final in Stuttgart to arrive in Paris in superb form, made a total of 34 unforced errors before beating world number 50 Sasnovich.
“I just kept trying. It was not a great level from me today but I fought for every point," Sabalenka said in a courtside interview. “It was a really tough match."
The pair traded breaks in the first six games with Sabalenka struggling with a low first serve percentage and Sasnovich having trouble with her opponent’s powerful returns.
A thundering crosscourt forehand put the third seed 6-5 up and she won the first set on her second set point when Sasnovich spilled a forehand long.
Sasnovich broke in the first game of the second set but failed to hold on to her advantage, later double faulting to hand Sabalenka a 5-3 lead.
Sabalenka finished the match on her serve to set up a third round clash against Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
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