Top seed Iga Swiatek advanced to a last eight showdown with sixth seed Coco Gauff on Monday after Lesia Tsurenko retired from their fourth round clash.
Swiatek was leading 5-1 in the opening set when the 34-year-old Ukrainian said she could not continue. They had been on court for 31 minutes.
It will be the first meeting on clay between Swiatek and Gauff since last year's French Open final which Swiatek won in straight sets.
"I'm the type of mentality that says if you want to be the best you have to beat the best," said Gauff.
"I think also if you want to improve, you have to play the best. I feel like the way my career has gone so far, if I see a level, and if I'm not quite there at that level, I know I have to improve and I feel like you don't really know what you have to improve on until you see that level."
Progress
Gauff, 19, advanced to the last eight following a straight sets win over the unseeded Slovakian Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
Gauff led 5-2 in the first set but allowed Schmiedlova to level at 5-5.
"When she got back to 5-5. I just had to forget about it," said Gauff. "I said to myself that I had to reset."
She took the next two games to claim the opener 7-5 and ran away with the second 6-2.
"I think it would be almost cowardly to say that I want to not face the noise and not face the challenge, but I think that I'm up for it," added Gauff.
"I have improved a lot since last year, and so has Iga."
Elsewhere in the top half of the draw, the seventh seed Ons Jabeur disposed of the unseeded American Bernarda Pera 6-3, 6-1 to reach the last eight in Paris for the first time.
Achievement
"The French Open was the only Grand Slam tournament where I hadn't gone to the last eight," said the 28-year-old Tunisian.
"I'm very happy with the performance and now I'm going to push more for and look for the semi-finals."
The 14th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia from Brazil will present the next hurdle for Jabeur after she came from a set down to eliminate the unseeded Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo.
The match took three hours and 51 minutes, the third longest women's tie at Roland Garros.
Reasons
"I think the keys were discipline and to be calm and to accept that I was missing. And OK, she's playing better," said Haddad Maia.
"But I said we are in Roland Garros playing on Suzanne Lenglen and I will try until the last point."
In the men's draw, Casper Ruud moved into a second consecutive quarter-final following a straight sets victory over the unseeded Chilean Nicolas Jarry.
Ruud, who lost in last year's final to Rafael Nadal, triumphed 7-6, 7-5, 7-5. It was revenge for the 24-year-old Norwegian who lost to Jarry in the final of the Geneva Open just before the start of the French Open.
"He's been playing great tennis," said Ruud of his opponent's streak. "I'm happy to get this win."
Ruud will take on the sixth seed Holger Rune. The 20-year-old sixth seed took just under four hours and five sets to down the 23rd seed Francisco Cerundolo.
