Easy victory takes Hingis into fourth round at Roland Garros

Top-seeded Martina Hingis of Switzerland volleys to Tathiana Garbin of Italy during their third round match at the French Open tennis tournament Keystone

The world tennis number one, Switzerland's Martina Hingis, has powered her way through the third Paris. Switzerland's Roger Federer also savoured victory against his compatriot, Michel Kratochvil.

This may have been Hingis’s easiest match of the tournament. She literally wiped Italy’s Tathiana Garbin off the court, conceding just one game. Her hard-pressed opponent put up a valiant effort, but it was clear she was out-classed from the beginning.

Hingis’s win takes her into the fourth round, when she will either take on the Bulgarian, Magdalena Maleeva or Romania’s Ruxandra Dragomir.

The far more interesting match of the day was an all-Swiss clash between Roger Federer and the rising star Michel Kratochvil.

If Federer was expecting an easy victory, he was disappointed. The determined Kratochvil, who had to win five matches to make the third round, made Federer earn every point in a five-set match, which went on for more than four hours.

Federer took the opening two sets then faltered badly, losing the third, 2-6, as well as the fourth in a 6-7 tie-break.

With everything hanging on the fifth, the two battled it out game for game, eventually drawing level, before Federer snatched victory in the third tie-break of the match.

With nobody in any doubt that these two players were equally matched through the game, Federer’s victory celebrations might be somewhat spoiled by the thought of future clashes with Kratochvil.

swissinfo with agencies