Top seed Roger Federer set up a French Open quarterfinal against old rival Fernando Gonzalez on Monday but he was below par in a 6-4, 7-5, 7-5 win over Frenchman Julien Benneteau in a rain-hit tie.
Gonzalez had looked impressive earlier in the day when he swept past the final American, Robby Ginepri, in straight sets 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 6-1.
The Swiss star has dropped just one set en route to the last eight, but he will have cause for concern over how he struggled to kill off his lowly ranked opponent.
”I couldn’t serve it out the way I wanted to in the first and second sets, but I felt okay out there,” Federer said. ”But it was tough conditions with the rain delay.
The unseeded Benneteau had played more sets than any other player to get the last 16 (14) and he was not expected to pose any problems for the world number one, who won their only previous meeting in straight sets in Cincinnati last year.
But in each of the first two sets he broke Federer’s serve when trailing 3-5 only to lose both of them by 6-4 and 7-5.
At that stage heavy rain brought an abrupt end to proceedings and it took ninety minutes before they got back on to a packed Philippe Chatrier Centre Court.
With warm sunshine replacing the gloomy skies that marked the earlier action, Federer again went a break up to lead 3-1, but again Benneteau battled back to level at 3-3.
The Swiss maestro was finding it hard to put away his world-ranked 55th opponent, letting slip a match point at 5-4 up, but two games later he finished it off with a smash at the net.
The 26-year-old Federer is bent on winning the only Grand Slam title that has eluded him, having lost to Rafael Nadal here in the last three years, including the last two finals.
Big-hitting Gonzalez matched his best-ever Roland Garros performance by defeating Ginepri.
The lone South American survivor in the tournament’s fourth round last got to the final eight in 2003 when he lost in five sets to eventual champion Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Dinara Safina mounted an astonishing comeback from a set and 2-5 down to send top seed Maria Sharapova crashing out of the French Open in an epic fourth-round battle on Monday.
Safina triumphed 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7/5), 6-2, saving a match point along the way, in a tie that lasted almost three hours. Shewill now meet fellow Russian Elena Dementieva, the seventh seed, for a place in the semi-finals.
The victory echoed Safina’s three-set win over Sharapova at the same stage in 2006 when she recovered from 1-5 down in the final set to triumph.
Sharapova, who still needs a French Open title to complete a career Grand Slam, went into Monday’s tie still searching for top gear on the testing Paris clay on which her best performance came last year when she made the semifinal. — AFP
