Djokovic and Federer made to work hard

Second seed Novak Djokovic was given a workout before earning his ninth straight victory over Marin Cilic to move into the fourth round of the French Open yesterday.

Djokovic was not at his best as he battled to a 6-3 6-2 6-7 (2-7) 6-4 victory to preserve his unbeaten record against Cilic.

The Croatian started strongly, moving into a 3-1 lead before Djokovic won out to take the opening set.

Even then, Djokovic was guilty of unforced errors and allowed Cilic to break back in the fourth set after taking a 4-2 lead.

The match took more than three hours to complete, but Djokovic eventually emerged with a win which will see him face either world number 14 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or 22nd seed Jerzy Janowicz in the next round.

One of the Serb’s big rivals, Roger Federer, struggled but also survived to make the fourth round.

The 17-time grand slam champion found the going tough against Russian 31st seed Dmitry Tursunov and needed more than three hours to grind out a 7-5 6-7 (7/9) 6-2 6-4 victory.

He will now take on 25-year-old Latvian Ernests Gulbis, who comes from one of the wealthiest families in the country. Gulbis made headlines by labelling the top four, and Federer in particular, boring.

Federer and Gulbis have played three times before, all in 2010 and all of them close, with the Swiss winning twice.

Gulbis said: “I have a game plan. I know how I’m going to play him. You don’t need to be scared to do certain things against him, because most of the people, they go on the court and they lose already the match before it has started. I can tell you that’s not going to be the case with me.”

In the women’s singles, Maria Sharapova thumped Paula Ormaechea 6-0 6-0 in 51 minutes to set up a fourth-round clash with 2010 finalist Sam Stosur.

The Australian knocked out ninth seed Dominika Cibulkova and could be a threat to Sharapova, but the seventh seed has won 13 of her previous 15 meetings.