[1]Novak Djokovic took his winning run to 43 matches on Sunday as he brushed aside France's Richard Gasquet 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 to reach the French Open quarterfinals.
Second seed Djokovic is now just three wins short of matching Guillermo Vilas's record of 46 consecutive wins and one shy of John McEnroe's mark of 42 wins for an unbeaten start to a season set in 1984.
Red-hot Djokovic, who next faces unseeded Italian Fabio Fognini for a place in the semi-finals, breezed to his fifth career win in six meetings against the 13th-seeded Gasquet.
"I'm happy with my game today. I played a great match against a great player, but I got important breaks and made no mistakes after that," said Djokovic.
"I'm playing the best tennis of my life at the moment. But it's important to just focus in each match and see how far I can go."
Unlike the stern workout he received at the hands of former US Open winner Juan Martin del Potro in the third round, which required four sets, the 24-year-old Serb had no difficulty negotiating the Gasquet challenge.
Djokovic, a Paris semi-finalist in 2007 and 2008, broke Gasquet in the first game of the match before a big, booming forehand gave him the opener.
The Australian Open champion broke to love to lead 4-3 in the second and enjoyed a love service game to secure the set.
A dispirited Gasquet, who has never made the quarter-finals in Paris, surrendered his service in the third and and fifth games to soon trail 1-4 in the third.
He saved two match points on his own serve in the seventh game, but Djokovic wrapped up the one-sided affair in the next when the Gasquet dumped a backhand into the net.
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