Spain's Rafael Nadal returns the ball to Argentina's Leonardo Mayer during the third round match of the French Open at the Roland Garros Stadium in Paris Saturday. — AP PARIS — Rafael Nadal shrugged off another bout of back pain to charge into the last 16 of the French Open Saturday with an imposing 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 win over Leonardo Mayer of Argentina. Seeking to become the first man to win five straight titles in Paris and the first to win nine times at the same Grand Slam, Nadal has lost just 19 games in getting to the last 16. At the same stage last year en route to his eighth French Open title, Nadal had dropped two sets and lost 48 games. Mayer, ranked 65th in the world, had little to offer as Nadal led from the start and was able to play well within his limits and still race away with the match. The Spaniard's record at Roland Garros since 2005 is now 62 wins for one loss, that coming against Robin Soderling of Sweden in a 2009 fourth round match. “It was a positive first week - under control and winning in straight sets is better and I'm happy for that,” he said. Only cloud on the horizon for Nadal was ongoing problems with his troublesome back that caused him to take some of the pace off his serve. “I felt a little bit my back, that's why I slowed down a little bit the serve,” he said. Next up for the Spaniard, who will turn 28 on Tuesday, is little-known Serb Dusan Lajovic, who saw off American hope Jack Sock 6-4, 7-5, 6-3. The man Nadal defeated in last year's final, fellow Spaniard David Ferrer, also reached the last 16 by defeating Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-2, 7-6 (7/2), 6-3. He will now go on to take on 19th seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa who moved through when opponent Ivo Karlovic of Croatia retired with a back injury after losing the first set 6-3. At 32, Ferrer was one of 10 men aged 30 or over to reach the third round, the most at any Grand Slam event since 1978 Wimbledon when there were 12. The highest number of players aged 30 or over through to the round of 16 at Roland Garros was eight in 1969. American hopes of having three players through to the last 16 for the first time since 1995, when Andre Agassi, Michael Chang and Jim Courier reached that stage, were shattered with defeats for Sock and Donald Young who was edged out 6-2, 6-4, 2-6, 6-7 (7/4), 6-4 by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain. John Isner made the fourth round Friday. French interest was high on Saturday with Gael Monfils and Richard Gasquet both hoping to join Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the fourth round. Monfils came through another punishing battle with Italian 14th seed Fabio Fognini, winning 5-7, 6-2, 6-4, 0-6, 6-2 after looking to be on the point of abandoning at one point at the end of the fourth set. In the women's section, Svetlana Kuznetsova led a seniors surge into the last 16 with a marathon win over Petra Kvitova as Roland Garros lost the fourth of its top five seeds. Kuznetsova, 28, won a three-hour 13 minute thriller to defeat fifth-seeded Kvitova 6-7 (3/7), 6-1, 9-7 in the the longest match of the women's tournament. The 2009 champion capitalized on Kvitova's 65 unforced errors and 10 double faults to set-up a fourth round clash with another Czech, 27-year-old Lucie Safarova. Kuznetsova, playing in her 12th consecutive Roland Garros, will next face Kvitova's Fed Cup teammate Safarova who put out Serb 11th seed Ana Ivanovic, the 2008 champion, 6-3, 6-3. It was left-handed Safarova's fifth successive victory against Ivanovic as she booked a place in the last 16 in Paris for the first time since 2007. Fourth-seeded Simona Halep, the highest-ranked woman left, made the last 16 for the first time as the Romanian continued to escape the Roland Garros carnage. The 22-year-old brushed aside Spain's Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor 6-3, 6-0 and next tackles 15th seeded American Sloane Stephens. Halep, 22, has lost just 11 games in three rounds in Paris. In contrast, the failure of Serena Williams, Li Na and Agnieszka Radwanska to get beyond the third round marked the first time in the Open era that the top three seeds had gone out before the last 16. Halep, relegated to Court 2 for her third round match, finished off Torro-Flor in just 64 minutes. Stephens, 21, reached the fourth round for a third successive year thanks to a 6-3, 6-4 win over Russian left-hander Ekaterina Makarova. Serb sixth seed Jelena Jankovic, a three-time semi-finalist, brushed aside Romania's Sorana Cirstea, a quarterfinalist in 2009, in straight sets 6-1, 6-2 and the 29-year-old will next face Sara Errani, the Italian 10th seed. Errani, 27, who was runner-up to Maria Sharapova in 2012, routed Israel's Julia Glushko 6-0, 6-1 in just 52 minutes. — Agencies
