Runaway Safina keeps going, Murray sparkles

By Pritha Sarkar

PARIS (Reuters) - Dinara Safina's headlong charge towards a maiden French Open title showed no sign of running out of steam when she charged into the quarter-finals on Sunday.

The Russian top seed flattened Aravane Rezai 6-1 6-0 to continue her ruthless streak at this year's championships.

Men's third seed Andy Murray was also in sparkling form as he strung together four successive wins on his least favourite surface for the first time by stamping out the challenge of Croatia's Marin Cilic with a 7-5 7-6 6-1 win.

Murray let out a big yawn as he walked on to Suzanne Lenglen Court but it was Cilic who was soon wishing he had stayed in bed when 40 unforced errors flew off his racket to help the Scot on his way.

The win not only made him the first Briton to reach the last eight since 2004 but kept Murray in the race against Roger Federer to secure the world number two spot by the end of the tournament.

Former world number one Justine Henin urged Safina to stamp her mark on the sport and the Russian appears to have taken the message to heart, dropping only five games in four rounds at the claycourt major.

"I don't waste my energy. I want to win every point," said the 23-year-old, who has bagged four of the eight sets she has contested to love.

"I'm just surprised that it's really like five games that I lost before getting into the quarters. It's not a bad feeling, and I hope if I continue like this I can go a long way."