Serena to renew Sharapova rivalry, Nadal nips Gasquet

PARIS— Serena Williams set up a mouthwatering French Open showdown against bitter rival Maria Sharapova on Saturday as Rafael Nadal kept his bid for an 11th title on track with a 16th successive win over childhood pal Richard Gasquet.

Three-time champion Williams made a nonsense of her 451 world ranking to reach the last-16 with a ruthless 6-3, 6-4 romp past German 11th seed Julia Goerges.

Sharapova, the 2012 and 2014 winner in Paris, was equally impressive, seeing off Czech sixth seed Karolina Pliskova 6-2, 6-1. Sharapova and Williams have met 21 times, with the American leading the head-to-head record 19-2 after 18 consecutive wins.

The Russian has not beaten her nemesis since 2004 – before even the birth of Twitter and YouTube.

The American ensured Monday's match could be a heated affair after dismissing Saturday large parts of Sharapova's recent memoir 'Unstoppable' as "hearsay".

Williams was angry over Sharapova's claims that she sobbed after losing the 2004 Wimbledon final to the then teenage Russian.

"I think the book was 100 percent hearsay, at least all the stuff I read and the quotes that I read, which was a little bit disappointing," she said.

"I didn't expect to be reading a book about me, that wasn't necessarily true."

Williams, the champion in 2002, 2013 and 2015 and playing her first Slam since giving birth to her daughter in September, last played a major at the Australian Open in 2017 while two months pregnant.