The weather was dull and wet but that did not stop a beaming Stan Wawrinka from having plenty of fun yesterday as he enjoyed a mid-match rally with a ballboy before twirling 360 degrees on court to take a selfie-video with 10,000 French Open spectators.
In between all the sideshows, the reigning champion lit up a gloomy Roland Garros with his lurid day-glo yellow shirt as he reached the quarter-finals with a dazzling 7-6 6-7 6-3 6-2 win over Viktor Troicki.
In an entertaining match featuring between-the-leg shots, 105 sweetly-struck winners and an array of blinding backhands from Wawrinka, the Swiss third seed chalked up his fifth successive win over Troicki when the Serbian netted a backhand.
“For me, it was a great win, a great match, a very robust match,” a soggy Wawrinka told reporters after playing the second set through a misty rain shower.
“I managed to stay very calm, I didn’t get excited, or irritated, even though I lost the second set.
“I didn’t waste any intellectual energy because I was very serene.”
The win earned Wawrinka an eighth successive victory on clay, following his triumph in the Geneva tournament last weekend, but more importantly it allowed him to set up a quarter-final meeting with unheralded Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Ramos-Vinolas, ranked 55, had never been past the second round in 18 previous grand slam appearances but yesterday he swept past eighth seed Milos Raonic, the big-serving Canadian.
His 6-2 6-4 6-4 victory was only his second defeat of a top-10 player, the other being Roger Federer last year, and followed his win over American Jack Sock on Friday.
Andy Murray moved ominously into the quarter-finals for the sixth time in his career with a clinical 7-6 6-4 6-3 defeat of American John Isner.
The second seed began the tournament scraping through back-to-back five-setters but has been a model of efficiency since and has his eyes fixed firmly on a first title at Roland Garros.
Britain’s Murray will play Richard Gasquet next.
Yesterday, France’s Gasquet eliminated Kei Nishikori, of Japan, 6-4 6-2 4-6 6-2.
In the women’s tournament, Garbine Muguruza beat Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3 6-4 to reach the last eight at Roland Garros.
The fourth seed moved into the quarter-finals for the third year in a row with a solid display as she looks to become the first Spanish woman to lift the Suzanne Lenglen Cup since Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in 1998.
Hard hitter Muguruza, who has yet to make it to the last four in Paris, left little breathing space for the Russian 13th seed, the 2009 Roland Garros champion, in a style different to that of Sanchez Vicario, a pure tennis claycourt specialist.
Muguruza will next face American Shelby Rogers who yesterday beat Romanian 25th seed Irina Camelia Begu 6-3 6-4.