In a tournament that has featured its share of upsets, three contenders advanced at the French Open on Thursday.

2nd-seeded Karolina Pliskova survived and advanced with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 over Ekaterina Alexandrova.  Despite being the highest seed remaining, Pliskova has flown under the radar thus far in Paris partly due to her struggles on the red dirt in the past. But she moved on to the third round at Roland Garros for the first time in her career.

“I'm happy because it's my first third round here at Roland Garros. I was every year struggling, even this year struggling, but with a better end,” she said. “I'm not really happy still with the way I was playing. I would say a little bit better than the first round but the opponent was different so she was playing much faster. The serve saved me in the third set.”

Meanwhile, Simona Halep swept past Tatjana Maria 6-4, 6-3 on Suzanne-Lenglen Court. With a wide-open women’s draw, the Romanian continues to be the favorite to win her first major title in Paris.

It was a business-as-usual performance by the three-seed who showed no signs of an injured ankle that hampered her prior to the French Open.

“I'm fit. I'm ready to play. I'm ready to play also three hours”, she said. “I think it was a difficult match today. I hadn't played against her in many years. I didn't expect her to play at such a high level, so at the beginning, I was a little bit insecure. I didn't know exactly what I had to do, what to attack or whether to take a step behind the court and the line or just to play the same.”

Elsewhere, Elina Svitolina overcame a strong challenge by Tsvetana Pironkova before finally pulling away 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Svitolina has been the most consistent player on the tour this season but found herself in a topsy-turvy match on Thursday.  The Ukrainian struggled with unforced errors early and fell behind in the first set.

But in the second, she finally began to find her groove and turned the match around as she looked more like the player who leads the WTA rankings race.

“I didn't play her before, but I know her for many years. I watched couple of matches of hers. I knew what to expect from her,” Svitolina said. “I think today she was playing really very good. I was just waiting for my chance…because I didn't play that bad in the first set, but I think she was playing really amazing from the start.”

The three contenders will be back on the court again on Saturday as they look to move on to the fourth round.