Second seed Jannik Sinner overcome an early flurry of brilliance from the unseeded Frenchman Corentin Moutet on Sunday evening to advance to the quarter-finals at the French Open.
The 22-year-old Italian won 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 in two hours and 41 minutes to set up a meeting with the 10th seed Grigor Dimitrov.
Feeding off the energy of an impeccably behaved partisan crowd on Court Philippe Chatrier, Moutet, ranked 79th in the world, dazzled Sinner with drop shots and beguiling slices.
Within 15 minutes – and to the delight of the fans – Moutet had won both of Sinner's serve and was vaunting a 4-0 lead.
He won another and served for the opener after 23 minutes at 5-0 up.
But Sinner stopped the rot to get on the board and held his own service for the first time after 36 psychedelic minutes.
Moutet, who was playing in the fourth round for the first time at the French Open, made no mistake at the second time of asking.
The 6-2 scoreline was the stuff of dreams. The noise and expectation frenetic.
Surge
And the fantasy continued when Moutet broke Sinner's serve at the start of the second set.
But without any fist-pumping, racquet-smashing tantrums or testosterone-fuelled bellowing, Sinner started winning.
He broke back to level at 1-1 and held his own service with more authority to lead 2-1.
And from 2-2, Sinner simply notched up more points than Moutet and though he squandered three set points on Moutet's serve while ahead 5-2, he wrapped up the second set courtesy of a couple of forehand winners and a big serve.
Sinner, who claimed the Australian Open in January, surged away in the third and underlined the gulf in class in the fourth.
Dimitrov awaits him on Tuesday following his impressive deconstruction of the eighth seed Hubert Hurkacz 7-6, 6-4, 7-6.
"I'm just really happy that I was able to make that extra step here," said the 33-year-old Bulgarian who will feature in the last eight in Paris for the first time in 14 visits.
"This is something I've always wanted," he added. "I just felt that there was always a little something to make the next step."
The other quarter-final in the bottom half of the men's draw will pit third seed Carlos Alcaraz against the ninth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Alcaraz disposed of the 23rd seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in straight sets on Court Philippe Chatrier while Tsitsipas saw off the unseeded Italian Matteo Arnaldi in four sets on Court Suzanne Lenglen.
