Sabalenka and Osaka advance, Potapova sends Gauff packing

Top seed Aryna Sabalenka and four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka on Saturday set up a blockbuster last-16 meeting at the French Open, while defending champion Coco Gauff was sent spinning out as Anastasia Potapova claimed a 4-6 7-6(1) 6-4 victory to reach the fourth round.

Sabalenka beat Australia’s Daria Kasatkina 6-0, 7-5 in just 76 minutes to stamp her ticket to the fourth round.

After racing through the first set, Sabalenka went an early break down to her 53rd-ranked opponent before battling back.

“I was happy in the tough moments I never gave up,” she said on court as Roland Garros goes through the last day of the heatwave that has sat over Paris since the beginning of the tournament.

With victory, the Belarusian world number one has set up a meeting with her fellow quadruple major winner, Osaka.

Sabalenka and Osaka, both 28, have won two Australian Opens and two US Opens apiece.

Sabalenka has beaten Osaka twice this season, but Osaka won their only meeting at a major -- at the same stage in the 2018 US Open, the first of her major titles.

The Japanese 16th seed battled past American starlet Iva Jovic 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (3/7), 6-4 to progress.

In a match dominated by serve with the first two sets decided by tie-breaks, Osaka gained the decisive break against the 18-year-old 17th seed in the 10th game of the third set.

“I was a lot calmer than in my first matches... In a Slam the further I get the calmer I am. It such an honour to be here. It’s the furthest I have ever been here,” Osaka, who had never before gone past the last 32 at Roland Garros, said.

Ukrainian Oleksandra Oliynykova, who in the build-up to her third-round match accused her Russian opponent Diana Shnaider of “taking money” from a “company financing war crimes” and of liking social media posts by “propagandists”, lost 7-5, 6-1.

Reigning champion and fourth seed Gauff will attempt to stamp her ticket to the fourth round when she takes on Austria’s Anastasia Potapova later in the day.

With the men’s side of the draw wide open following the shock early exits of top seed Jannik Sinner and 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic, Flavio Cobolli laid down a marker with an emphatic victory over Learner Tien.

The Italian 10th seed beat the American 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 in one hour and 45 minutes on centre court.

Cobolli will next meet Zachary Svajda with a spot in the quarter-finals on the line.

“Of course I want to think match by match,” Cobolli said when asked about the relatively open Roland Garros draw. That’s the way that I want to think this week.

“I know that there are many possibilities to have a new Grand Slam champion. For sure we [will] have a new Grand Slam champion, but I don’t want to think about this. For sure I have now another tough match.”

American world number 85 Svajda upset 25th seed Francisco Cerundolo to continue his best ever run at a Grand Slam.

The 23-year-old had never got beyond the second round of a major but ensured his debut French Open would extend into the second week with a 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3 win over Argentina’s Cerundolo.

Agence France-Presse