Serbia hogged the French Open limelight on Sunday when first Ana Ivanovic raced and then Jelena Jankovic hobbled into the quarter-finals before Novak Djokovic struck another blow to the hopes of a home champion.

Second seed Ivanovic played with the urgency of a woman late for a lunch appointment as she ruthlessly dismantled Czech Petra Cetkovska 6-0, 6-0 in 54 minutes on Court Philippe Chatrier.

In a late match, three-time champion Rafael Nadal pummelled fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco into a 6-1, 6-0, 6-2 submission to reach the quarter-finals, while Nicolas Almagro beat another Frenchman, Jeremy Chardy, 7-6, 7-6, 7-5.

While Ivanovic’s win was painfully easy, Jankovic’s was just downright painful. She needed a 10-minute medical time-out after game three of the second set against Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska before she crawled past the finishing line with a 6-3, 7-6 victory.

“The whole arm is a mess,” said Jankovic, who resembled a wrestler pinned to the floor as the tournament trainer massaged her arm and shoulder back to life. “I started to feel the pain in the beginning of the second set and since then it’s been pain, pain, pain,” said the 23-year-old, who will next face Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.

No mercy

The Paris crowd had barely got through the scrum at the turnstiles as Ivanovic, who by each passing minute looks like improving on her runner-up finish of last year, showed no mercy against the lamentable Cetkovska. The unseeded Czech, who had not dropped a set in the tournament, looked like a decent threat going on a high-quality opening rally, but once Ivanovic got her eye in she folded quicker than a bad poker hand.

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