PARIS // Rafael Nadal shrugged off another bout of back pain to charge into the last 16 of the French Open with an imposing 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 win over Leonardo Mayer of Argentina on Saturday.
Seeking to become the first man to win five straight titles in Paris and the first to win nine times at the same grand slam, Nadal has lost just 19 games in getting to the last 16.
At the same stage last year, en route to his eighth French Open title, Nadal had dropped two sets and lost 48 games.
Mayer, ranked 65th in the world, had little to offer as Nadal led from the start and was able to play well within his limits and still race away with the match.
The Spaniard’s record at Roland Garros since 2005 is now 62 wins for one loss, that coming against Robin Soderling of Sweden in a 2009 fourth round match.
“It was a positive first week – under control and winning in straight sets is better and I’m happy for that,” he said.
The only cloud on the horizon for Nadal was ongoing problems with his troublesome back that caused him to take some of the pace off his serve.
“I felt a little bit my back, that’s why I slowed down a little bit the serve,” he said.
Next up for the Spaniard, who will turn 28 on Tuesday, is little-known Serb Dusan Lajovic, who saw off American hope Jack Sock 6-4, 7-5, 6-3.
Asked if he would asking for advice on how to tackle Nadal from fellow Serb Novak Djokovic, Lajovic wryly replied: “Yeah, I will try to ask everybody some tips against Rafa.”
Ten men aged 30 or over have reach the third round, the most at any grand slam event since 1978 Wimbledon when there were 12.
The highest number of players aged 30 or over through to the round of 16 at Roland Garros was eight in 1969.
American hopes of having three players through to the last 16 for the first time since 1995, when Andre Agassi, Michael Chang and Jim Courier reached that stage, were ended with the defeats for Sock and Donald Young who was edged out 6-2, 6-4, 2-6, 6-7 (7/4), 6-4 by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain.
John Isner made the fourth round on Friday .
Andy Murray was also in action going up against Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber, who won a tournament on clay in Dusseldorf last weekend. But with the match tied in the fifth set, play was suspended when the edition went to print.
Four of the top five women’s seeds have exited tournament
PARIS // Svetlana Kuznetsova led a seniors surge into the French Open last 16 on Saturday with a marathon win over Petra Kvitova as Roland Garros lost the fourth of its top five seeds.
Kuznetsova, 28, won a three-hour, 13 minute thriller to defeat fifth-seeded Kvitova 6-7 (3/7), 6-1, 9-7 in the longest match of the women’s tournament.
The 2009 champion capitalised on Kvitova’s 65 unforced errors and 10 double faults to set up a fourth-round clash with another Czech, Lucie Safarova.
Former Wimbledon champion Kvitova, a semi-finalist in 2012, had enjoyed a 3-0 career edge over the Russian going into yesterday’s clash, but her efforts were undermined by twice needing medical timeouts to treat a back and leg injury.
She saved two match points in the 12th game of the decider but the inconsistencies that continue to plague her big-hitting game saw her twice fail to serve out the tie in the 10th and 14th games of the third set. “I knew I was going to give everything I could and run every mile, every metre I could, and put as many balls back and try to be aggressive,” Kuznetsova said.
Playing in her 12th consecutive Roland Garros, Kuznetsova will next face Kvitova’s Fed Cup teammate Safarova, who put out Serb 11th seed Ana Ivanovic, the 2008 champion, 6-3, 6-3.
The failure of Serena Williams, Li Na and Agnieszka Radwanska to get beyond the third round marked the first time in the Open era that the top three seeds had gone out before the last 16.
Sloane Stephens, 21, reached the fourth round for a third successive year thanks to a 6-3, 6-4 win over Russian left-hander Ekaterina Makarova.
Sixth-seed Jelena Jankovic, a three-time semi-finalist, brushed aside Romania’s Sorana Cirstea, a quarter-finalist in 2009, in straight sets 6-1, 6-2 and the Serb, 29, will next face Sara Errani, the Italian 10th seed.
Errani, 27, who was runner-up to Maria Sharapova in 2012, routed Israel’s Julia Glushko 6-0, 6-1 in just 52 minutes.
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