Second seed Daniil Medvedev cruised past Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia 6-2 6-4 6-2 in less than two hours on Sunday (NZ time) to advance to the French Open fourth round.
The US Open champion, who reached the quarter-finals 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."
Medvedev found little resistance on his least favourite surface from the Serbian 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.
Medvedev 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 long rally and a sliced 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 U.S. 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."
Greek fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas also made light work of his third-round opponent, thrashing Sweden's Mikael Ymer 6-2 6-2 6-1 in a lopsided contest.
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 over 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 Sunday.
"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.
The Greek had spent a total of seven hours and 40 minutes on court in his previous two rounds, coming through a five-set win over Italian Lorenzo Musetti and a tough four-setter against Czech Zdenek Kolar.
He was pleased to have been able to save some energy with Saturday's shorter outing.
"I had to do my job; I had to play my tennis. I wasn't really thinking of the ease that I could maybe create in terms of a result," he said.
"It's a good thing to have a match like this every now and then."
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.
Reuters.
