French Open: Ons Jabeur eases past Clara Tauson to set up Gauff quarter-final

Tunisia's Ons Jabeur slid into the French Open quarter-finals for the second time as she earned a hard-fought 6-4, 6-4 victory over Denmark's Clara Tauson on Sunday.

No 8 seed Jabeur broke 72nd-ranked Tauson's service in a tight third game and nearly dropped her own right afterwards in a marathon 26-point game but held firm and went on to clinch the first set.

With a superb passing shot, the 29-year-old Tunisian immediately took the lead in the second set but could not hold it and had to wait until the fifth game to break again as Tauson hit two mistimed unforced errors.

Tauson, who defeated 2017 Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko in the second round and former runner-up Sofia Kenin in the third, nearly drew level in the 10th game but Jabeur kept the upper hand to wrap up victory in little over an hour and a half.

Jabeur, targeting a first Grand Slam title after finishing runner-up twice at Wimbledon and at the US Open last year, will face world No 3 Coco Gauff in the quarter-finals.

Afterwards, Jabeur said: "Clara played really well, she was really tough but I knew it was going to be tough.

"But thanks so much to the fans. I stayed focused and concentrated all the way to the victory. The idea was to play my own game and my own style because I knew I could cause her some trouble and I did."

On her quarter-final against Gauff, she said: "She's a fantastic player, she's been playing extremely well, she won the US Open last year, she's tough on the clay but I think I can cause her some problems."

Earlier in the day, the American Gauff was far too strong for Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto, sealing a 6-1, 6-2 win.

The match began at a fast pace, with the 45th-ranked Cocciaretto winning only two points in the first four