03 June, 2017
Nine-time champion Rafael Nadal lost just one game in a ruthless display to reach the French Open last 16 on Thursday, while Garbine Muguruza gained further momentum in the defence of her title.
Nadal has a 75-2 win-loss record at Roland Garros with his only defeats coming against Robin Soderling in the fourth round in 2009 and Novak Djokovic in the 2015 quarter-finals.
"I don't know if it was perfection", said Nadal, who turns 31 on Saturday.
Austrian sixth seed Dominic Thiem routed Italy's Simone Bolelli 7-5, 6-1, 6-3.
The pair have never met before this match, and the victor will move onto the fourth round and play the victor of Jiri Vesely and Roberto Bautista Agut.
Defending champion Djokovic dismantled Portugal's Joao Sousa 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 to see him advance past his shock second-round exit at the year's first major in Melbourne.
"We both were playing pretty good", the Spanish fourth seed said, "The level was very high, it was who was going to keep it for a long time".
Bulgarian 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov surrendered a comfortable first set lead to tumble out of the French Open 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 to Spain's Pablo Carreno Busta. Of Nadal's 97 match wins in best-of-five matches on clay, a whopping 72 of them needed three sets or fewer, including one win in which his opponent retired. That seemed to melt the steel in the Bulgarian's game, and he speared a backhand into the net to concede the first set and the second and the third.
After saving two break points to hold, the flashy Frenchman broke his Spanish opponent for a second straight time, opening the game with a drop shot victor and, at 15-40, taking a 3-1 lead with a monster forehand that Nadal could only meekly send into the net on the return. "So I don't know what advice I can give", said the 25-year-old. "If he wants me there, yeah, I will come", said Agassi.
Djokovic will play his third-round match against Diego Schwartzman.
Goffin was leading 5-4 when he chased down the ball towards the back of the Suzanne Lenglen court.
Carlos Moya has told Rafael Nadal to ignore all talk of a 10th French Open title, but admitted that the magical double-digit is causing pressure for his fellow Spaniard. He has dropped just 14 games across the six sets, holding serve easily for the most part and breaking when he needed to.
Kazakh 27th seed Putintseva enjoyed her best Grand Slam performance in Paris previous year when she made the quarter-finals.
