By Sudipto Ganguly
PARIS (Reuters) -Greek fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas thrashed Sweden’s Mikael Ymer 6-2 6-2 6-1 in a lopsided contest to canter into the French Open fourth round on Saturday.
Tsitsipas, who made the final at the claycourt Grand Slam last year, came into the Roland Garros clash with a 3-0 head-to-head lead over fellow 23-year-old Ymer.
There were no signs that things would be any different this time with Tsitsipas dominating proceedings from the onset on a sun-bathed Court Suzanne Lenglen.
He put on a clinical service display on the red clay, facing just a single break point on his delivery and losing only 10 points on his serve.
“Lot of good rallies from my side. We have a history, playing Mike from the juniors. We played each other a lot,” Tsitsipas said on court, adding that he enjoyed the sunny and drier conditions on Saturday.
“It was a good game for myself. I think I played really well and topped it off with some pretty good, patient tennis.”
Tsitsipas used his forehand to great effect to pin Ymer behind the baseline and broke his opponent’s serve twice in each of the first two sets and another three times in the third.
The Greek had spent a total of seven hours and 40 minutes on court in his previous two rounds, coming through a five-set win over Italian Lorenzo Musetti and a tough four-setter against Czech Zdenek Kolar.
He was pleased to have been able to save some energy with Saturday’s shorter outing.
“I had to do my job; I had to play my tennis. I wasn’t really thinking of the ease that I could maybe create in terms of a result,” he said.
“It’s a good thing to have a match like this every now and then.”
Ymer, ranked 95th in the world, did not help his cause by committing 26 unforced errors during the one hour 32 minute contest.
Tsitsipas will meet Denmark’s Holger Rune or local hope Hugo Gaston for a place in the quarter-finals.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Ken Ferris and Clare Fallon)
