PARIS, June 4: In a day of mixed fortunes for the defending champions at the French Open, men’s title holder Rafael Nadal of Spain bulldozed into the quarter-finals while women’s defending champion Li Na of China crashed out.
Nadal progressed to the last eight with an awe-inspiring 6-2 6-0 6-0 demolition of Argentine 13th seed Juan Monaco on Monday.
Second seed Nadal, gunning to become the first man to win seven Roland Garros titles, trailed Monaco 2-1 in the first set before winning the remaining 17 games to stay undefeated on Court Suzanne Lenglen since his French Open debut in 2005. Monaco came out with all guns blazing but quickly hit the Rafa wall, with the Spaniard ending his opponent's ordeal after one hour and 46 minutes on his first match point.
Li, who was Asia's first Grand Slam singles champion when she took the 2011 title, lost her crown at the fourth round stage, going down 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 to Kazakh qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova, the world 142.
Li, attempting to be the first French Open women's champion to successfully defend the title since Justine Henin in 2007, disintegrated to Shvedova, a doubles specialist who matched her deepest trip into a Grand Slam in Court Suzanne Lenglen.“I lost one match so don't try to put me down,” Li, who hasn't won a title since her Paris victory, snapped at a tense post-match news conference.
After breezing through her first three matches, second-seeded Maria Sharapova overcame a catalogue of errors on a bitterly cold day in Paris to struggle past Czech veteran Klara Zakopalova and into the quarter-finals for the sixth time.
She persevered in a 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 victory over the 44th-ranked Zakopalova in a match that took 3 hours, 11 minutes and featured 21 breaks of serve.
“It was a good test for me,” Sharapova said. “I had chances to finish in two sets and didn't but I came out strong in the third set. I guess that's really what matters and it's nice to be in the quarters again.”
Earlier in the men's draw, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga followed up a long night of worrying with a short day of tennis.
The fifth seed returned to Roland Garros on Monday and finished off a five-set victory over No 18 Stanislas Wawrinka, quickly dropping a service break but rebounding to win the last two games of a match that was suspended by darkness the night before.Tsonga, seeking to provide a first French win in the men's singles since Yannick Noah in 1983, led 4-2 in the fifth when play resumed.
And despite dropping his serve in the opening game, he held steady to pull off a 6-4, 7-6 (8/6), 3-6, 3-6, 6-4 win that saw him into the quarter-finals at Roland Garros for the first time.
Next up will be a meeting with top seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia, who has history-making on his mind too as he bids to become the first man in 43 years to hold all four Grand Slam titles at the same time.
Other winners on Monday included 12th-seeded Nicolas Almagro, who defeated No 8 Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Almagro faces Nadal for a place in the semi-finals.
Another Spaniard, sixth-seeded David Ferrer, wiped out No 20 Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-2, 6-0. Ferrer has dropped only 25 games en route to the quarter-finals.
Like Tsonga, Juan Martin del Potro returned to finish his match on Monday.
Del Potro was two sets to one up against Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic when darkness fell on their fourth round tie late Sunday and he wasted little time on their return to complete a 7-6, 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 win.
His reward will be another crack at third seed Roger Federer, against whom he lost a thrilling five-setter in the 2009 semi-finals.
On Sunday, US Open champion and 2010 French Open runner-up Samantha Stosur of Australia ended unseeded American Sloane Stephens’ best Grand Slam run when she defeated the teenager 7-5, 6-4.
Stosur will face Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova, who downed top seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus to pull off a major upset earlier in the day, in the quarter-finals.
Results (prefix number denotes seeding):
Men’s singles:
Fourth round: 2-Rafael Nadal (Spain) bt 13-Juan Monaco (Argentina) 6-2, 6-0, 6-0; 9-Juan Martin Del Potro (Argentina) bt 7-Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic) 7-6 (8-6), 1-6, 6-3, 7-5; 5-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France) bt 18-Stanislas Wawrinka (Switzerland) 6-4, 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 3-6, 6-4; 12-Nicolas Almagro (Spain) bt 8-Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia) 6-4, 6-4, 6-4; 6-David Ferrer (Spain) bt 20-Marcel Granollers (Spain) 6-3, 6-2, 6-0.
Women’s singles:
Fourth round: 2-Maria Sharapova (Russia) bt Klara Zakopalova (Czech Republic) 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-2; Yaroslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan) bt 7-Li Na (China) 3-6, 6-2, 6-0. Sunday’s remaining result:
Women’s singles:
Fourth round: 6-Samantha Stosur (Australia) bt Sloane Stephens (US) 7-5, 6-4.—Agencies