Nadal powers into French Open quarter-finals as Halep, Bertens lose

RAFAEL Nadal on Sunday reached the quar quarterter-finals in Paris in his pursuit of a 13th French Open men’s singles title while women’s top seed Simona Halep crashed out.
On Court Philippe-Chatrier, Nadal was ruthless against American qualifier Sebastian Korda as he powered into the quarter-finals 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 after less than two hours of play.

The Spaniard is through to a record 14th Roland-Garros quarter-final, where he faces either sixth-seeded Alexander Zverev or Italian prodigy Jannik Sinner.

Meanwhile, Iga Swiatek handed Halep a 6-1, 6-2 defeat in the Roland Garros fourth round on Sunday to avenge her exit to the Romanian last year in Paris at the very same stage.

The 19-year-old Pole produced a devastating performance against the 2018 champion to storm into a maiden Grand Slam quarter-final.

The 54th-ranked Swiatek, a former Wimbledon junior champion and Roland-Garros junior doubles champion, fired 30 winners and won 81 per cent of her first-serve points, wrapping up the win in just 68 minutes.

Halep, who crushed Swiatek in a 45-minute rout in the French capital last year before falling to American teenager Amanda Anisimova, was on a 17-match winning streak entering the contest on Sunday and has now suffered her earliest Roland Garros exit since 2016.