French Open: Jannik Sinner marches on in Paris with drubbing of Russian Andrey Rublev
Ruthlessly efficient from the baseline, the Italian dissected world number 15 Rublev's game in stunning fashion to make light work of the Court Philippe Chatrier night match.
The 23-year-old, bidding to win a third successive Grand Slam title after his triumphs in New York and Melbourne, has won 12 out of 12 sets so far on the Parisian clay and is beginning to look unstoppable in his quest for a first French crown.
Rublev did not play at all badly, but after failing to convert either of the two break points he had in the opening game he could make little impression.
World number one Sinner was at least pushed hard in the third set as Rublev threw caution to the wind but he pounced to break the Russian's serve in the 10th game to stretch his streak of wins in Grand Slams to 18 matches.
'I'm very, very happy because things can turn very quickly in a bad way in best of five sets,' said Sinner, who served a three-month doping ban before returning to action in Rome last month.
Rublev had beaten Sinner twice before, including once last year, and also prevailed when the two met at the same stage of the French Open in 2022, albeit when Sinner retired hurt.
This time, however, the accuracy and ferocity of Sinner's ground strokes left the Russian scrambling just to try and hang on to his opponent's coat tails.
Initially, when Rublev belted away a forehand winner to leave Sinner at 15-40 down in the opening game, it looked like it could be a contest. But the Italian swatted away that early danger before delivering a masterclass for the evening crowd.
Only three unforced errors came off his racket in set one and he offered up only a few more in the second as he barely appeared to be breaking sweat.
Sinner only had to save one more break point, at 2-2 in the third set, but by that stage the match was already heading for its predictable conclusion.
He will have to face a very different sort of test in the quarter-finals when he faces Kazakhstan's Alexander Bublik who stunned fifth seed Jack Draper with a spellbinding four-set win.
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