Roundup: Nadal, Djokovic reach milestones, last Chinese exits from singles at Roland Garros

Nine-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal and top seed Novak Djokovic reached milestones at Roland Garros on Thursday, when the sole Chinese remaining in women' s main draw crashed out.

Nadal, seeded the fourth after Roger Federer' s withdrawal due to back injury, has popped up 200 Grand Slam match wins as he saw off Argentina' s 99-ranked Fecund Bagnis 6-3, 6-0, 6-3.

The world No. 5 dropped the first two games against Bagnis but won 18 of the next 22 to ease into a last 32 clash against fellow Spaniard Marcel Granollers.

Federer tops the all-time list of Grand Slam matches won on 302 and Nadal is just the eighth man to record up 200 major match victories.

"I even didn't know that," said the 29-year-old. "For me, the most important thing is a victory in the second round more than the 200 victories. That's only another number, and that's it."

The left-hander, who' s humbled by Novak Djokovic in a one-sided quarterfinal last year, could become the first professional to have won 10 times at Roland Garros if triumphing next Sunday.

Djokovic, however, will be a formidable obstacle against. The Serbian dispatched Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 to claim his 50th win at the tournament on Thursday.

The world No. 1, looking for a Roland Garros title to complete a career Grand Slam, was critical of his performance against Darcis, a player nicknamed "Shark" who dumped Nadal out of Wimbledon in 2013.

"There were things that I definitely didn't like in my game today. Too many unforced errors," said the 29-year-old Djokovic, who next plays Slovenia-born Briton Aljaz Bedene.

The 11-times major winner and three-time French Open runner-up committed 42 unforced errors.

"He plays with a lot of speed, is good from the baseline and it was not easy for me to play the points the way I wanted," Djokovic said of 32-year-old Darcis. "He has a lot of talent and it was tough. I am happy to have won in three sets."

In the women' s play, defending champions Serena Williams was joined by sister Venus in the third round after symmetrical victories from the American siblings on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

World No. 1 Serena beat Brazil's Teliana Pereira 6-2, 6-1 before ninth-seeded Venus produced the same result against fellow American Louisa Chirico to reach the third round for the first time since 2010.

Earlier in day five competitions, world No. 74 Wang Qiang, the sole Chinese remaining in the French Open women' s singles main draw, was beaten in straight sets by No. 12 seed Carla Suarez Navarro.

The Asian Games champion, 24, managed to pull back from four games down in the second set but failed to recover when trailing 5-3 to the Spaniard before giving up her own serve game to lose 6-1, 6-3 in one hour and five minutes.

"I felt quite uncomfortable against such a high level clay-court expert like Navarro," commented the Tianjin native after the second round match.

"She' s the one having control the whole match and forced a lot of errors from me, especially in the first set," she added.

It' s been Wang' s second campaign in French Open' s main draw and her first time making the singles second round.

Later then, 69th-ranked Zhang Shuai, who paired up with Australia' s Samantha Stosur one day after being ousted by the Australian, packed home after losing 6-1, 6-4 to Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina.

Another Chinese singles player Zheng Saisai suffered a first-round exit on Tuesday when the 22-year-old was beaten 6-3, 6-1 by the 22nd seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia.

There leaves only a mixed doubles schedule in sight involving a Chinese player Xu Yifan, in addition to two Chinese pairs survived in the women' s doubles, namely Australian Open semifinalists Xu Yifan/Zheng Saisai and Liang Chen/Wang Yafan. Endit