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Paul Myers

Swiatek crushes Wang to move into last-16 at French Open

Top seed Iga Swiatek breezed into the fourth round at the French Open. The 22-year-old Pole beat Xinyu Wang from China 6-0, 6-0 in 51 minutes. AP - Jean-Francois Badias

Top seed Iga Swiatek cruised into the last-16 of the French Open on Saturday with a surgical 6-0, 6-0 win over Xinyu Wang from China.

Swiatek raced into a 5-0 lead in the opening set within 22 minutes on centre court.

A second backhand winner from the 22-year-old Pole yielded two set points but a backhand into the net and Wang's first ace of the match brought it to deuce.

But two more errors from the world number 80 - including a third double a third double fault - offered the defending champion the set 6-0 in 25 minutes.

It was similarly one-way traffic in the second. Swiatek took the 21-year-old's first serve of the set comofotably and, spraying winners from the baseline or forcing the error, moved onto 5-0.

That at least left Wang with the chance to salvage some pride and she got a huge cheer when a forehand winner nudged her to 30-0 and two points from her first game.

But Swiatek reeled her in to 30-30. A fourth double fault notched up Swiatek's match point and she unleashed a forehand down the line to complete the destruction in 51 minutes.

"I'm happy that I could keep my focus even when I seemed to be winning so easily," said Swiatek.

Coco Gauff won the battle of the teenagers against Mirra Andreeva. The 16-year-old Russian took the first set in the tiebreaker but last year's beaten finalist swept through the second 6-1 and turned on the power to waltz through the decider by the same score.

Sick

Fourth seed Elena Rybakina pulled out of her third round match with Sara Sorribes Tormo. The 24-year-old from Kazakhstan complained of breathing difficulties during a practice session.

"Everything was going well but after my second match, just all of a sudden I started to feel bad, and it didn't get better at all," she explained.

In the men's draw, the fourth seed Casper Ruud came from a set down to beat Zhizhen Zhang in four sets.

Sixth seed Holger Rune eased past the unseeded Argentine Genaro Alberto Olivieri. The 20-ear-old Dane won 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 in just under two hours on centre court.

"I'm really happy with the way I played," said Rune. "It was very windy so you had to be careful at every moment."

The 27th seed Yoshihito Nishioka ended Thiago Seyboth Wild's adventure in five sets.

Seyboth Wild, who dispatched second seed Daniil Medvedev in the opening round, ran out of steam in the decider to allow Nishioka his first visit to the last-16 at the French Open in seven visits.

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