Spanish third seed Carlos Alcaraz shrugged off his injury concerns to reach the French Open last 16 with a solid straight-set victory against American 27th seed Sebastian Korda.
Alcaraz, who has been nursing an arm injury, fought hard to win 6-4 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 at Roland Garros.
The reigning Wimbledon champion had enough quality to come through an entertaining night-session match.
“It was a really good match, I think I played really well – much better than my previous matches,” said 21-year-old Alcaraz.
“I wanted to feel myself on court – I think I did that pretty well.”
Alcaraz pounced to decisively break Korda’s serve for 5-4 in the opening set and confidently held to move in front.
The second set was equally tight. The pair exchanged breaks early on before Alcaraz clinched the tie-break at the second attempt with a blistering forehand winner.
With Alcaraz’s confidence and quality continuing to rise, the third set started to run away from 23-year-old Korda.
Alcaraz broke for 3-1 and made Korda dig in to save two more break points at 4-1 before the two-time major winner served out an encouraging victory.
Alcaraz, who reached the semi-finals last year in a career-best run, will face American 15th seed Ben Shelton or Canadian 21st seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the fourth round.
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