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PARIS -- At the famous French Open in Roland Garros, top-seeded Simona Halep showed no signs of fatigue in beating wild-card entry Taylor Townsend 6-3, 6-1 to reach the third round on Thursday.
The Romanian broke the 72nd-ranked American in the first game and jumped to a 5-1 lead.
Halep served out the last game to love, breaking into a smile after a winning volley at the net that brought up three match points.
Her next opponent, Andrea Petkovic of Germany, beat Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-0, 7-6 (5) to reach the third round.
Two-time French Open champion Maria Sharapova, competing at Roland Garros for the first time since 2015, won her second-round match against Donna Vekic 7-5, 6-4.
It took her a little bit to close things out, but two-time champion Maria Sharapovaimproved to 13-0 in second-round matches here by beating 50th-ranked Donna Vekic of Croatia 7-5, 6-4.
Sharapova led 5-2 in the second set, then served for the win at 5-3, but was broken when she sailed an off-balance forehand wide. She broke right back to end it, though, converting her fifth match point with a forehand return winner..
The 31-year-old Russian won the title in 2012 and 2014, part of her career Grand Slam. She is seeded 28th this year.
Next for Sharapova is a matchup against sixth-seeded Karolina Pliskova, the runner-up at the 2016 US Open and a semifinalist in Paris a year ago.
Pliskova reached the third round with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory over 2015 French Open runner-up Lucie Safarova.
Third-seeded Garbine Muguruza, the 2016 champion, made it into the third round with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over French wild-card entry Fiona Ferro.
As she did in her first-round match against Svetlana Kuznetsova, Muguruza again impressed with her ease of movement around the court.
Muguruza will next face Samantha Stosur, who eliminated 30th-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2, 7-6 (1).
Courtesy of ESPN/Associated Press.
