Thiem muscles his way into the fourth round

SEVENTH seed Dominic Thiem muscled his way into the fourth round of the French Open yesterday, putting out Italian claycourt specialist Marco Berrettini 6-3 6-7(5) 6-3 6-2.

Hitting searing forehands and serves of up to 224 km/h, Thiem was in combative form on Roland Garros’s No. 1 court, dubbed the bullring, eventually running away with the win.

The world number eight, who had a strong build up to the Paris major, winning in Lyon and making the final in Madrid after beating Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals, will take on Japan’s Kei Nishikori, the 19th seed, in the last 16.

● Former champion Novak Djokovic wore down obdurate

Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut to grind out a 6-4 6-7(6) 7-6(4) 6-2 victory in the French Open third round.

Still fighting to find the form that took him to 12 major titles – his last the 2016 French Open – Djokovic huffed and puffed and demolished a racket in anger near the end of the second set, before regaining his composure to set up a last 16 clash with Spanish veteran Fernando Verdasco.

It was never comfortable for the 31-year-old Serb, though, and he found himself in dire trouble in the third set when dropping serve to love at 3-4.

He fell back on his old survival instincts, however, breaking back in the following game before playing a solid tiebreak to move to within a set of victory.

Thirteenth seed Bautista Agut, playing just a few days after the death of his mother, lost some belief in a fourth set played out in drizzle and Djokovic quickly wrapped up victory.

After consoling his opponent at the net Djokovic saluted the crowd who raised their umbrellas in approval.

“It was a magnificent four hours of tennis, I’m very tired but delighted,” 2016 champion Djokovic said on court in accomplished French. “He plays with so much consistency you have to have patience.”

● Elina Svitolina’s French Open breakthrough was again put on hold when the Ukrainian fourth seed was knocked out 6-3 7-5 in the third round by Romania’s Mihaela Buzarnescu.

The 23-year-old Svitolina, who trains at Roland Garros and was a quarter-finalist in 2015 and 2017, had been tipped as one of the potential winners for the second year in a row after winning the Italian Open, but she never found her groove on Court One.

She dropped serve five times and made 29 unforced errors, bowing out on the first match point when she buried another forehand into the net.

Buzarnescu, who reached the final in Prague on clay last month, next faces American 13th seed Madison Keys, the 2017 US Open runner-up. – Reuters