Sunday best puts Djokovic into quarterfinals`

novakc_2.jpg.crop_display.jpg

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.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/76531" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b7dfdf983bca9651f63dd3bdaf61d3b1" value="form-b7dfdf983bca9651f63dd3bdaf61d3b1" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80622531" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.