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NANTERRE, France: French prosecutors on Friday called for Paris Saint-Germain star Achraf Hakimi to face trial for the alleged rape of a woman in 2023 which the Moroccan international denies.

The Nanterre prosecutor’s office told AFP that they had requested that the investigating judge refer the rape charge to a criminal court.

“It is now up to the investigating magistrate to make a decision within the framework of his order,” the prosecutor’s office told AFP in a statement.

Hakimi, 26, played a major role in PSG’s run to their first Champions League title, the full-back scoring the opener in the 5-0 rout of Inter Milan in the final in May.

Hakimi, who helped Morocco to their historic progress to the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup, was charged in March, 2023 with raping a 24-year-old woman.

Hakimi allegedly paid for his accuser to travel to his home on February 25, 2023, in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt while his wife and children were away on holiday.

The woman went to a police station following the encounter alleging rape and was questioned by police.

Although the woman refused to make a formal accusation, prosecutors decided to press charges against the player.

She told police at the time that she had met Hakimi in January 2023 on Instagram.

On the night in question she said she had traveled to his house in a taxi paid for by Hakimi. She told police Hakimi had started kissing her and making non-consensual sexual advances, before raping her, a police source told AFP at the time.

She said she managed to break free to text a friend who came to pick her up.

Contacted by AFP after Friday’s development Hakimi’s lawyer Fanny Colin described the call by prosecutors for a trial as “incomprehensible and senseless in light of the case’s elements.”

“We, along with Achraf Hakimi, remain as calm as we were at the start of the proceedings.

“If these requisitions were to be followed, we would obviously pursue all avenues of appeal,” she continued.

According to Colin, her client had “been the target of an attempted extortion.”

“Nothing in this case suggests an attempted extortion,” Rachel-Flore Pardo, the lawyer representing the woman, said.

“My client welcomes this news with immense relief,” she told AFP.

“We will not tolerate any smear or destabilization campaign, as is unfortunately still too often the case for women who have the courage to report the rape of which they are victims,” she added.

The son of a cleaning lady and a street vendor, both Moroccans who have lived in Spain since the 1980s, Hakimi was born in Getafe, a southern suburb of Madrid.

Hakimi came through the youth system at Real Madrid before joining Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund in 2018.

He went on to make 73 appearances for the German club.

He moved to Inter Milan in 2020 and then on to PSG in 2021 where he has established himself as an integral part of the team.

In Qatar, Hakimi was a cornerstone of the Morocco team that became the first African or Arab nation to reach the semifinals of a World Cup.

MONTREAL: Anastasija Sevastova stunned two-time defending champion Jessica Pegula 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 on Friday to book a fourth-round clash with Naomi Osaka at the WTA Canadian Open.

Sevastova, a former world No. 11 now ranked 386th, snapped fourth-ranked Pegula’s 11-match WTA Canada win streak, the longest since Serena Williams reeled off 14 consecutive wins in 2011, 2013 and 2014.

She will try to extend her Montreal run in a round of 16 meeting with Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion from Japan who ousted another Latvian, 22nd seed Jelena Ostapenko, 6-2, 6-4.

“Somehow, I was down 2-0 in the second set and started to play better and better,” Sevastova said. “Third set I played really good.

“Just trying to stay on the court as long as possible,” added Sevastova, who has dealt with injury since returning from maternity leave in February 2024.

In the night session, second-seeded Iga Swiatek — playing her first tournament since winning Wimbledon — raced into the fourth round with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Germany’s Eva Lys.

Swiatek next faces Denmark’s Clara Tauson, who beat Yuliia Starodubtseva 6-3, 6-0.

Pegula, last year’s US Open runner-up in her best Slam showing, was the first woman to win back to back Canadian Open titles since Martina Hingis in 1999-2000.

But she has struggled in recent months, dropping her openers at Wimbledon and at Washington last week.

The American broke to open the match and again at love to claim the first set.

But she couldn’t maintain an early break in the second, with Sevastova breaking for a 5-4 lead and denying Pegula on three break chances before holding in the final game to force a third set in which she seized a 4-1 lead on the way to victory.

“It was a weird match for me,” Pegula said. “I felt like I had total control and then I just played a couple of terrible games for, like, three games.

“That totally flipped the momentum of the match, and I went from being up a set and 2-0 to being down very quickly.

“I don’t really feel like I’m playing great tennis,” Pegula admitted. “At times I am, but I feel very up and down, kind of sloppy, which I don’t like. I’ve got to figure it out.”

Osaka, twice a winner at both the US and Australian Opens, is one match away from her first quarter-final run at either a Grand Slam or WTA 1000 event since she returned from maternity leave at the start of 2024.

Now ranked 49th, Osaka broke on a double fault to capture the first set in 30 minutes and raced to a 3-1 lead in the second.

They exchanged breaks before Osaka served for the match with a 5-3 lead, but Ostapenko saved a match point on a forehand crosscourt winner and broke when Osaka sent a forehand beyond the baseline.

The Japanese star responded by breaking Ostapenko at love in the final game.

“I went in there knowing she’s a great player and if I give her a chance she’s going to hit a winner on me, so I just tried to keep my pace and stay as solid as I could,” Osaka said.

Australian Open champion Madison Keys, seeded sixth, beat fellow American Caty McNally 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 and will next meet Karolina Muchova, a 6-7 (2/7), 6-2, 6-3 winner over Belinda Bencic.

Fifth-seeded American Amanda Anisimova, regrouping this week after a crushing 6-0, 6-0 loss to Swiatek in the Wimbledon final, swept past Britain’s Emma Raducanu 6-2, 6-1.

She lined up a meeting with Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, who beat Russian Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-1.