Sawt Falasteen - Alcaraz cruises into French Open quarter-finals

The 19-year-old, who has won four ATP titles this season, won 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 in the night-session match on Court Philippe Chatrier to set up a last-eight meeting with third seed Alexander Zverev.

Alcaraz, seeded sixth at Roland Garros, thrashed Zverev in the Madrid Masters final earlier this month after also knocking Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal out of the tournament.

He will be bidding to reach a maiden Grand Slam semi-final, where he would face Nadal or Djokovic, after matching his previous best effort from last year's US Open.

Alcaraz was already the youngest man to reach the French Open last 16 since Djokovic in 2006, when the Serb went on to lose to Nadal in the quarter-finals.

Former quarter-finalist Khachanov was expected to give Alcaraz a real test of his title credentials but never fully recovered from a dreadful start which saw him fall 5-0 behind in the first set.

The Spaniard hit 37 winners and made 30 unforced errors as he wrapped up victory inside three sets despite being broken for the only time in the third.

Khachanov battled to force Alcaraz to serve it out in a marathon 10th game of the set, saving five match points to hold.

But Alcaraz needed just one on his own serve to get the job done, securing victory on his sixth match point when Khachanov netted.

It was a second successive straight-sets win for Alcaraz after saving a match point when winning a second-round thriller against compatriot Albert Ramos-Vinolas.

F.AbuShamala--SF-PST