Top seeds Roger Federer and Lindsay Davenport took huge steps towards claiming first French Open titles on Friday as Roland Garros eagerly awaited the teenage duel between Rafael Nadal and Richard Gasquet.
Federer, bidding to become only the sixth man to win all four grand-slam tournaments, survived a blistering first-set assault by Chilean 25th seed Fernando Gonzalez to move into the last 16 with a 7-6 (11/9), 7-5, 6-2 win.
He now faces 1998 champion Carlos Moya, who won a five-set marathon against Spanish compatriot Fernando Vicente, for a place in the quarterfinals.
”That’s one step further than last year,” said Federer, who was dumped out of the 2004 tournament in the third round by Gustavo Kuerten.
Gonzalez, a gold-medal winner at the Olympics last year, has the build of a boxer and he used that brute force, allied to his thunderous forehand, to get the measure of Federer in a bruising first set.
The Chilean recovered from being broken in the third game to break back in the fifth and took the opener into a tiebreak.
But he then squandered two set points before Federer, after a 54-minute tussle, clinched the set on his fourth set point when Gonzalez netted a backhand return.
The 24-year-old Chilean’s challenge eventually wilted in the 34-degree-Celsius heat as Federer went on to wrap up the tie after two hours and 10 minutes with a forehand winner.
”His forehand has unbelievable zip, so it was tough to get a rhythm going,” said Federer.
”You have to find his backhand because he sets up the forehand well with his serve. You have to weather the storm against this guy and get through it.”
Moya, the 14th seed, saw off Vicente 6-4, 7-6 (7/4), 6-7 (3/7), 0-6, 6-4 to reach the fourth round, where he will face Federer having lost all five of their career meetings.
Later on Friday, title favourite Rafael Nadal was taking on fellow 18-year-old Richard Gasquet in an eagerly awaited third-round clash.
The Spanish fourth seed has won five clay-court titles this year and is bidding to win Roland Garros on his debut, while the French player is just one of two men, along with Marat Safin, to have beaten Federer in 2005.
Defending champion Gaston Gaudio, the fifth-seeded Argentinian, later takes on Spain’s Felix Mantilla.
In the women’s event, Davenport set up a fourth-round clash against comeback kid Kim Clijsters, but their paths through the third round were vastly different.
While the Belgian 14th seed blasted her way past Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova in double-quick time 6-4, 6-2, Davenport was taken all the way by unseeded Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano before coming through 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.
The 21-year-old Clijsters holds a career lead of 18-12 over the 28-year-old Davenport, including their past six matches, but the two have never met on clay.
Davenport has been struggling since the start of the tournament, losing her opening set in her two earlier ties, and against the limited Razzano she once again gave little indication that she can go all the way and win the only grand-slam title to have eluded her.
”I feel quite lucky to be in the fourth round but hopefully things will get better from here,” said Davenport.
The American’s best performance in Paris is a semifinal appearance in 1998, and she has never looked at home on the clay courts where her lack of mobility is most exposed.
Clijsters extended her career record over Hantuchova to 5-0 and showed no ill effects of the knee injury she picked up in Berlin three weeks ago, which had threatened her participation in Paris.
”I’ve never played Lindsay on clay. It’s not the favourite surface for either of us, but I know I will have to raise my game against her,” said Clijsters, the runner-up in 2001 and 2003 who is playing her first grand-slam tournament since the Australian Open in 2004 after missing most of last year with a wrist injury.
When she returned to the tour, she picked up back-to-back titles in Indian Wells and Miami, sending her ranking up from 133 to its current 17. — Sapa-AFP