PARIS (AFP) - Greece's Maria Sakkari demolished last year's French Open runner-up Sofia Kenin 6-1, 6-3 on Monday (June 7) to reach the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time.
The world No. 18 needed just 68 minutes to defeat the fourth-seeded American and set up a clash with either reigning champion Iga Swiatek or Ukrainian teenager Marta Kostyuk for a place in the last four.
Sakkari broke Kenin six times as the 2020 Australian Open winner committed 32 unforced errors and served nine double faults.
"I'm speechless. I love Paris. I'm having a great time and I don't want to leave anytime soon," said Sakkari, who reached the last 16 in Melbourne and New York last year. "I'm actually enjoying myself, that's the most important thing. I'm not actually torturing myself when I'm on court."
The win was Sakkari's third over a top-five player this season. It also left eighth seed Swiatek as the highest-ranked player left in the women's draw.
"The match before yesterday gave me a lot of confidence," said Sakkari, who beat 14th seed Elise Mertens in three sets in the previous round. "I played really good tennis and so today I was really ready for a battle."
Earlier, Novak Djokovic survived a major scare from teenager Lorenzo Musetti to reach a 15th Roland Garros quarter-final and stay on course to become the first man in over 50 years to win all four Grand Slams twice.
The world No. 1 dropped the first two sets, then comfortably levelled before the 19-year-old Italian retired in the final set.
The Serb's 6-7 (7-9), 6-7 (2-7), 6-1, 6-0, 4-0 win set up a last-eight clash with Matteo Berrettini, another Italian, who progressed after Roger Federer's withdrawal.
Djokovic, the 2016 champion and chasing a 19th Grand Slam, was facing his earliest exit in Paris since 2009 when 19-year-old Musetti stormed through the first two sets, hitting blistering winners and finding the acutest of angles.
But the 76th-ranked Italian, making his Grand Slam debut, then went dramatically off the boil. Where the first two sets had taken 75 and 66 minutes, Djokovic swept the third in 24 minutes and the fourth in just 17.
Musetti won only 14 points in the third and fourth sets before leaving the court for a medical time-out.
Djokovic broke for 1-0 in the decider, injuring a finger as he smashed a winner while losing his balance and falling into the clay. Musetti gamely fought on but after being broken twice again, he called it quits.
Argentinian 10th seed Diego Schwartzman reached his third French Open quarter-final with a 7-6 (11-9), 6-4, 7-5 win over Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff.
He will face 13-time champion Rafael Nadal or Italian teenager Jannik Sinner for a place in the last four. He was beaten by the Spaniard in last year's semi-finals.
The 28-year-old saved seven set points in the first set as he rallied from a 5-1 deficit against the 42nd-ranked Struff, who had only once before made the fourth round at a Slam event.
Schwartzman let a 4-0 lead slip in the third set but held on to make his fifth Grand Slam quarter-final.
