Mighty Nadal improves to 55-1 at Roland Garros

Paris, France – Seven-time champion Rafael Nadal moved into the fourth round at the French Open on Saturday.

The third-seeded former world No. 1 star got past 27th-seeded flashy Italian shot-maker Fabio Fognini 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, 6-4 on Court Chatrier.

Nadal, seeking a fourth straight title at this clay-court Grand Slam event, is now 55-1 lifetime here. The Spanish great, who will turn 27 on Monday, beat Novak Djokovic in last year's finale.

Nadal's fourth-round opponent will be 13th-seeded rising Japanese Kei Nishikori, who topped 24th-seeded Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 6-1 on a sunny, breezy Day 7. Nishikori is the first Japanese man to reach the fourth round at the French since 1938.

In the match of the tournament thus far, 12th-seeded 35-year-old resurgent German Tommy Haas outlasted 19th-seeded American marathon man John Isner 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 6-7 (10-12), 10-8 in 4 hours, 37 minutes.

Isner saved 12 match points in a dramatic fourth set, as the towering American battled Haas for 46 points over 31 minutes at one point to survive the stanza.

Haas saved a match point against in the fifth and ultimately converted on his 13th match point to stave off Isner, who fired 27 aces in the gut-wrenching setback.

The 6-foot-9 Isner holds the record for the longest-ever tennis match, when he beat France's Nicolas Mahut in 11 hours, 5 minutes over three days at Wimbledon in 2010.

The one-time world No. 2 Haas will face Russian veteran Mikhail Youzhny in the round of 16.

Meanwhile, seventh-seeded crowd favorite Richard Gasquet blew past former world No. 3 Russian Nikolay Davydenko 6-4, 6-4, 6-3, the 29th-seeded Youzhny upended eighth-seeded Serb Janko Tipsarevic 6-4, 6-4, 6-3, and ninth-seeded Swiss slugger Stan Wawrinka bested 21st-seeded 6-foot-8 Pole Jerzy Janowicz 6-3, 6-7 (2-7), 6-3, 6-3. Gasquet and Wawrinka will lock horns in round four.