PARIS:
Novak Djokovic will aim to reach a 15th consecutive French Open quarter-final on Monday after setting an unwanted record at Roland Garros.
The defending champion and 24-time Grand Slam title winner advanced to the last 16 by defeating Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti in a thrilling five-set saga that ended at 3:07am. of Sunday.
It was the last finish at Roland Garros.
“I think some things could have been handled differently,” the 37-year-old Djokovic said.
“There’s some beauty in winning the match at three in the morning if it’s the last match of the tournament, but that didn’t happen.”
On Monday, three-time French Open champion Djokovic faces Argentine 23rd Francisco Cerudolo for a place in the last eight.
Victory would give him a record 370th Grand Slam match win.
Cerundolo and Djokovic have never met before, but the Argentine stunned world number four Alexander Zverev on clay in Madrid earlier this season on his way to the quarter-finals.
The 25-year-old also made the last 16 at Paris 2023, where he lost in five sets to Denmark’s Holger Rohn.
Zverev, who knocked out 14-time champion Rafael Nadal in the first round, was pushed to the limit by Talon Greekspur in the third round, where he fought back from 4-1 down in the final set.
The 27-year-old German is playing in the shadow of an ongoing trial in Berlin over allegations of assaulting an ex-girlfriend.
Zverev is in the fourth round at Roland Garros for the seventh consecutive year and is the only player to reach the semifinals at the last three French Opens.
Rune, a two-time quarter-finalist in Paris, defeated Zverev in straight sets in their only previous meeting on clay in Munich in 2022.
Fifth-seeded Russian Daniil Medvedev will face 11th-seeded Australian Alex de Minaur.
Former US Open champion Medvedev reached the quarter-finals in 2021, ending a run of four consecutive first-round losses.
Casper Rudd, runner-up to Nadal and then Djokovic for the past two years, faces Taylor Fritz for a place in the quarter-finals.
Fritz cruised past 56-man Thanasis Kokkinakis in a five-set third-round clash on Saturday.
In the women’s tournament, world number two Aryna Sabalenka, who was a semi-finalist in 2023 and has reached at least the last four in her last six Grand Slams, plays American number 22 Emma Navarro.
The 23-year-old Navarro is in the last 16 of a Grand Slam for the first time.
Navarro defeated American and recent Strasbourg clay court champion Madison Keys in the third round.
Former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, the fourth seed and only woman to beat world number one Iga Swiatek on clay this season, faces experienced Ukrainian number 15 Elina Svitolina.
Moscow-born French player Varvara Gracheva plays 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva, the Russian teenager who is the youngest woman to reach the age of 16 on all three Slam surfaces since Anna Kournikova in 1998.
“I know Varvara quite well. We’ve been training together for almost two years, so I know what to expect. She’s at a great level right now,” Andreeva said of her 88th-ranked opponent.
Monday’s other last 16 clash sees Elina Avanesyan, also from Russia, take on 12th seed Jasmine Paolini of Italy.
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