Djokovic eases past Schwartzman, sets up showdown with Nadal
PARIS: Defending champion Novak Djokovic has reached his record 16th career Roland Garros quarter-final after beating Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman on Sunday. The No 1-ranked Djokovic quickly recovered from only the slightest of blips at the start of the second set on Sunday and went on to register a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 victory over 15th-seeded Schwartzman at Court Suzanne Lenglen.
He will face Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals after the Spaniard battled past Felix Auger-Aliassime 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in a hard-fought fourth-round clash.
Djokovic has won all 12 sets he’s played so far in this year’s tournament and dropped a total of merely 30 games across the four matches.
He fell behind 3-0 in the second set but grabbed seven games in a row to take that set and a 1-0 lead in the third. Djokovic has made the quarter-finals in Paris 13 years in a row. He won the title in 2016 and last year, part of his collection of 20 Grand Slam trophies. Only one man has won more— Rafael Nadal, with 21.
Alexander Zverev also reached the quarter-finals by ending Spanish qualifier Bernabe Zapata Miralles’ run on Sunday. Zverev’s quality in the big moments proved enough in a 7-6 (13/11), 7-5, 6-3 victory.
US Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez moved into the quarter-finals at Roland Garros for the first time with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Amanda Anisimova. The 19-year-old Fernandez had more than twice as many winners, 35, as unforced errors, 17, and continued her run of impressive returning at the tournament. She broke Anisimova six times and now has won 23 of her opponents’ service games through four matches.
Fernandez had never won more than two consecutive main-draw matches on clay until this trip to Paris. The Canadian made a breakthrough last year at the US Open by making it all the way to the final before losing to Emma Raducanu in a match-up between a pair of unseeded teenagers. Fernandez, the youngest player to win a WTA title in 2022, is seeded 17th at the French Open and will play Martina Trevisan of Italy next.