Second seed Daniil Medvedev cruised past Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia with a comfortable 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 victory in less than two hours on Saturday to advance to the French Open fourth round.
The US Open champion, who reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros last year after four consecutive first-round exits, played near flawless service games throughout to give his opponent, ranked 31st in the world, no real chance.
“It was magnificent today. I did not have my serve broken,” Medvedev, runner-up at the Australian Open this season, said in an on-court interview. “On this surface it is quite unusual. Hopefully there are more such matches for me next week. Like in my French, I try to do better in my tennis all the time. The better I learn French the better my tennis will become.”
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Medvedev found little resistance on his least favourite surface from the Serb 28th seed and broke him twice in the opening set before another early break made sure of a 2-0 set lead for the Russian. He had arrived at the French Open with only one match on clay under his belt after undergoing a procedure to treat a hernia in April but it did not show against Kecmanovic, who tried to battle back only to be broken again at 2-2 following a lengthy rally and a slice backhand that went long.
Medvedev finished the game on his first match point, firing a forehand cross-court past Kecmanovic. He will next play Croatia's former US Open champion Marin Cilic.
"I'll have to do better in Roland Garros than last year, that's for sure," he told reporters. "Again, last year I felt like I was playing great tennis, and yet I lost in quarters.
"I think every time somebody comes up to me playing on clay, they're going to be like, we have the chance. Maybe on hard courts they are still going to believe but maybe they are going to be a little bit scared or whatever. Here I think everybody believes they can beat me."
Sinner punishes wasteful McDonald
Italian 11th seed Jannik Sinner saved 11 set points in the second set before beating wasteful American Mackenzie McDonald 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 on Saturday to reach the fourth round at the French Open. Sinner had his backs to the wall at 5-2 down in the second set but kept his composure as the World No. 60 squandered chance after chance to clinch it.
“Both of us were not felling well on court but very happy to be through,” Sinner said.
“I don’t feel 100 percent that’s for sure,” added Sinner, who played with his left knee strapped. “I don’t want to talk about it. But I served well, and I broke him early in the third set.”
Sinner broke the American once midway through the first set to go into the lead. The World No. 12 then carved out three break opportunities in a marathon fifth game of the second set that lasted almost 15 minutes but McDonald fought back to win it.
It was the American who then earned two straight breaks to go 5-2 up but then spectacularly imploded when he squandered 11 set points to allow Sinner, who himself littered the court with 40 unforced errors in the opening two sets alone, to clinch the tiebreak in a set that lasted an hour and a half.
There was no coming back for the American as Sinner then raced to a 3-0 lead and clinched the match when his opponent sailed a forehand long, to set up a fourth-round encounter with the winner of the match between Russian Andrey Rublev and Chile’s Cristian Garin.
Tsitsipas defeats Ymer in straight sets
Greek fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas thrashed Sweden's Mikael Ymer 6-2 6-2 6-1 in a lopsided contest to canter into the fourth round.
Tsitsipas, who made the final at the claycourt Grand Slam last year, came into the Roland Garros clash with a 3-0 head-to-head lead against fellow 23-year-old Ymer.
There were no signs that things would be any different this time with Tsitsipas dominating proceedings from the onset on a sun-bathed Court Suzanne Lenglen.
He put on a clinical service display on the red clay, facing just a single break point on his delivery and losing only 10 points on his serve.
"Lot of good rallies from my side. We have a history, playing Mike from the juniors. We played each other a lot," Tsitsipas said on court, adding that he enjoyed the sunny and drier conditions on Saturday.
"It was a good game for myself. I think I played really well and topped it off with some pretty good, patient tennis."
Tsitsipas used his forehand to great effect to pin Ymer behind the baseline and broke his opponent's serve twice in each of the first two sets and another three times in the third.
Ymer, ranked 95th in the world, did not help his cause by committing 26 unforced errors during the one hour 32 minute contest.
Tsitsipas will meet Denmark's Holger Rune or local hope Hugo Gaston for a place in the quarter-finals.
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