Nadal & Djokovic stay on course to meet in French Open semis
Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal

RAFAELl Nadal continued his superb form with a dominant 6-1 6-2 6-2 win over Roberto Bautista Agut to move easily into the French Open tennis quarter-finals.
Second seed Novak Djokovic remains on course to face Nadal in the semi-finals after a 7-6 (7-5) 6-1 6-3 win against 19th seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Nadal, 31, is looking to become the first man to win 10 titles at a single Grand Slam event.
He will face another Spaniard, Pablo Carreno Busta, in the last eight.
Margaret Court is the only player to have won 10 or more titles at one Grand Slam event, winning the Australian Open on 11 occasions between 1960 and 1973.
Nadal now has a 76-2 win-loss record at Roland Garros with his only defeats coming against Robin Soderling in the fourth round in 2009 and Djokovic in the 2015 quarter-finals.
Nadal’s victory was not quite as simple as Friday’s incredible 6-0 6-1 6-0 defeat of Nikoloz Basilashvili but the fourth seed has not dropped a set yet.
It is the 11th time he has reached the quarter-finals at the French Open – a record shared with Roger Federer.
Carreno Busta, 25, reached his first Grand Slam quarter-final with a 4-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-7 (6-8) 6-4 8-6 win over Canadian fifth seed Milos Raonic.
Carreno Busta, seeded 20th, failed to convert six match points in the deciding set before eventually grinding down last year’s Wimbledon runner-up.
And a first career win against a top-10 ranked opponent will be rewarded with a meeting against nine-time champion Nadal.

Djokovic through after sticky start
Twelve-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic, 30, has not found his way through the draw as easily as old rival Nadal – especially during a gruelling five-set win against unseeded Argentine Diego Schwartzman in the previous round.
Ramos-Vinolas’ resistance in a 73-minute opening set, where Djokovic had his serve broken twice to trail 4-2 before fighting back to win the tie-breaker, indicated it could be another battle for the Serb.
But any fears he might have had were unfounded.
Djokovic won the first four games on his way to wrapping up the second set in 28 minutes, then broke again in the sixth game of the third set – after Ramos-Vinolas saved a break point two games earlier following a thrilling 41-shot rally – before serving out to victory.
Before thinking about the prospect of facing Nadal in the last four, Djokovic’s first task is to overcome sixth seed Dominic Thiem.
The 23-year-old Austrian – like Nadal and third seed Stan Wawrinka – has not dropped a set on his way to the last eight, needing little over an hour and a half to win 6-1 6-3 6-1 against unseeded Argentine Horacio Zeballos.

Nishikori through in five sets
Japan’s eighth seed Kei Nishikori survived a scare to beat unseeded South Korean Hyeon Chung in five sets.
Nishikori, 27, needed almost four hours to win 7-5 6-4 6-7 (4-7) 0-6 6-4 in a third-round match finished on Sunday after the previous day’s rain delay.
“I think the rain helped me a lot, because I was really down in the fourth set and mentally I wasn’t ready,” said Nishikori, whose only Grand Slam final appearance came when he lost at the 2014 US Open.
“I knew I had to change something to beat him, so I think I made some adjustments to make it a little better than yesterday.”
Big-serving American John Isner, seeded 21, was knocked out in his third-round match by Karen Khachanov of Russia, who won 7-6 (7-1) 6-3 6-7 (5-7) 7-6 (7-3).
The 21-year-old will now face British world number one Andy Murray in the fourth round on Monday.
French 15th seed Gael Monfils reached the fourth round for a seventh time when compatriot Richard Gasquet withdrew from their rain-delayed match with a thigh injury.
Monfils, 30, was leading 7-6 (7-5) 5-7 4-3 when his opponent withdrew, setting up a last-16 meeting with Wawrinka.(BBC Sport)

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