French Open 2021: Kenin and Svitolina in action, Federer and Barty to come – live!

Eurosport are now going to join the action on Philippe-Chatrier, where the No 1 seed Ash Barty is currently 3-1 down against her Polish opponent Magda Linette. That means we are going to join the action there, too, in case you were wondering, and of course I’ll try to stay across all the other scores as much as possible.

By the way, you can email me or tweet me with your thoughts on the action if you like: Email here, or tweet @LukeMcLaughlin. C’est bon.

Ann Li is ranked 75, and will feel she missed a big chance here against the world No 6: there is no doubt she had Svitolina on the ropes at 4-1 up in the second set. But the fifth-seeded Ukrainian fought back in style and she moves into the third round. Li played some tremendous stuff there, and it was all the more eye-catching after she was blown away in the first set. Positives to take out of that for Li.

A horrid mishit from Li, and Svitolina suddenly has two break points. She wins the first one thanks to a positive, attacking return, and she’s now 5-4 up and about to serve for the match. It looks like Li’s fightback is over, unless she can find something special in the next game.

Svitolina eventually wins her service game! We are now at 4-4 and the Ukrainian has reminded Li that she is still very much up for this battle. Li wasted a couple of break points there but still has every chance of forcing a deciding set.

Absolutely stunning stuff from Li, a searing forehand winner down the line, which forces her second break point of the game. She is targeting Svitolina’s second serve consistently. But she hits long on the next point, and we’re back to deuce.

Svitolina’s power and precision is starting to tell again, and Li has made a couple of bad errors including double-faulting in her previous service game. However, Li grinds out an excellent point to force deuce on Svitolina’s serve in this eighth game of the second set …

Svitolina breaks! Thanks to a double fault from Li, it’s back to 4-3 in the second. A significant blow for the fifth-seeded Ukrainian but still plenty of work for her to do.

What else? Kenin is 3-0 up on Baptiste in their second set, while the world No 1 Ash Barty has just started her match against Magda Linette on Philippe-Chatrier.

Li spices up the longest rally of the match with a sliced backhand. Svitolina, clearly feeling the heat from her reinvigorated opponent, subsequently butchers a deep forehand return a few shots later, sending it tamely wide. Both players are seeing the ball nicely now, finding their groove, and the rallies are warming up. Svitolina looks noticeably stressed between points, all the more so having been in such firm control in the first.

The Svitolina of the first set looked set to reappear and dominate her service game – Li fought back to 40-30 – but then coughed up an easy chance for Svitolina to make it 4-2 in this second set.

In the men’s, Kwon Soon-woo wins his first set against Seppi, 6-4.

Elsewhere: Kenin (seeded fourth) fights her way to a 7-5 set victory against Baptiste, while Muchova takes the first, 6-3, against Lepchenko.

Li wins her service game from deuce and goes 4-1 up in the second. It’s hard to overstate how well the American has done to fight back into this match. I said it would be a massive surprise to see anything other than a straight-sets win for Svitolina, and it appears we’re in for a massive surprise.

Li sweetly strikes a couple more impressively deep forehands to create a point-winning chance, with a seemingly easy smash to finish, but she sends it long and it’s 30-30 on her service game. Still, what is so impressive is how Li has taken control of most of these exchanges after being blown away in the first set.

Elsewhere in the women’s singles: Ons Jabeur of Tunisia (25 seed) takes her first set against Astra Sharma, 6-2, while Jessica Pegula has taken the first set 6-3 against the Czech Tereza Martinicova.

Svitolina, meanwhile, steadies the ship and gets a foothold in the second set, which Li now leads 3-1.

Wow! A long rally of crushing ground strokes from both players ends with a stunning drop-shot winner by Li, stretching to her right. Svitolina, suddenly, is ashen-faced and battling for every point.

It’s 3-0 Li! She looks a different player, with the confidence to craft and shape her shots around the court, in stark contrast to the first set, when she was blown away by Svitolina. Lovely stuff.

“So this is going to be 6-0, 0-6, 7-6,” quips the commentator, before remembering that there isn’t a tie-break in the third …

Ann Li, suddenly, is firmly in this match. She breaks for 2-0, striking the ball with authority throughout that service game from Svitolina. There was an aggressive, precise backhand return winner and another sumptuous forehand, and this is a really impressive recovery from the 20-year-old American.

Berrettini, seeded ninth, takes that first set against Coria, 6-3.

The Italian Berrettini (9) is well on the way to winning the first set against Coria in the men’s singles, forcing a break point at 5-3 up.

Li, meanwhile, is on the board! She holds serve and leads 1-0 in the second set against Svitolina. Well played.

Svitolina wins the first set against Li, 6-0, closing it out with an immaculate service game. It would be a massive surprise to see anything other than a regulation straight-sets win for Svitolina, the fifth-seeded Ukrainian.

Li – who is 20, and was born somewhere pleasingly named ‘King of Prussia’ in Pennsylvania – has now established herself in this match to some extent. She just forced a couple of game points on her serve, and impressively saved a couple of break points too, but her opponent eventually wore her down, and has created a 5-0 first-set lead. Very, very strong stuff from Svitolina: one crushing double-handed backhand down the line was particularly eye-catching there. But Li does at least have something to work with now in the second set. Svitolina is now serving for the first set.

Svitolina 4-0 up against Li: it’s one-way traffic at the moment.

Elsewhere in the women’s singles, Sofia Kenin (4) and Hailey Baptiste are 2-2 in their first set, Karolina Muchova (18) is 2-1 up on Varvara Lepchenko.

Matteo Berrettini (9) leads Federico Coria 3-2 in their men’s singles second-round encounter while Kwon Soon-woo and Andreas Seppi are on serve at 1-1.

Elina Svitolina (fifth seed) is taking care of business against Ann Li: She has roared into a 3-0 first-set lead, with a double break of serve, in double-quick time. Li tries a subtle drop, but gets it horribly wrong, which sums up how this first set has gone for the American so far.

Might today prove to be Roger Federer’s last stand at Roland Garros? With all due respect to his opponent, Marin Cilic of Croatia, most of us will be hoping not. Federer defeated Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin in straight sets on Monday, an encouraging return to grand-slam action following a knee injury, while Cilic eased past Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech to set up today’s second-round meeting, which begins at 3pm.

Plenty to keep us all occupied before that, of course: Novak Djokovic will be in action from 1.30pm, against Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay. This morning, Sofia Kenin is about to get her match against Hailey Baptiste under way, while Elina Svitolina has just kicked off against Ann Li on Court Suzanne Lenglen, and Ashleigh Barty faces Magda Linette of Poland from 11am on Philippe-Chatrier. This evening, there is the small matter of Rafael Nadal v Richard Gasquet in the men’s singles. I’ll bring you as much detail on all the action as humanly possible until 6pm: Let’s go!