World number two Aryna Sabalenka weathered a spectacular first set implosion to beat American Sloane Stephens 7-6(5) 6-4 on Sunday and advance to the French Open quarterfinals.

The Belarusian, who will face Ukraine's Elina Svitolina in the last eight, gave Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, no hope at the start, unleashing a barrage of baseline missiles that left the 30-year-old stunned and looking around for help.

Sabalenka, the hardest-hitting player on the women's tour and the 2023 Australian Open champion, raced to a 5-0 lead with Stephens winning a total of just eight points.

But the American, no stranger to the Paris big stage after reaching the final in 2018, was not done yet, clawing her way back and saving a set point at 5-2 to cut the deficit.

With her own first serve wilting, Sabalenka, in complete freefall by now, missed another two set points at 5-4 on Stephens' serve before her opponent spectacularly leveled and then held to take it to a tiebreak.

The Belarusian, looking win a second Grand Slam trophy, managed to pull herself together at the last moment, clinching the first set on her fourth opportunity.

She cut down on the unforced errors in the second set but again Stephens battled back from 4-2 down to level before Sabalenka broke again to go 5-4 up and serve out the match.

Meanwhile in the men's draw, Karen Khachanov showed good resilience to down Italian Lorenzo Sonego 1-6 6-4 7-6(7) 6-1 and reach the quarterfinals for the second time

The Russian 11th seed looked out of sorts in the opening set before finding his range on Court Suzanne Lenglen, using his forehand to devastating effect.

Sonego never recovered from wasting a 4-0 advantage in the third-set tiebreak, which proved to be the turning point of an entertaining encounter. Khachanov will now face either two-time Roland Garros champion Novak Djokovic or Peru's Juan Pablo Varillas.

"After the first set and a half, I was thinking, what am I doing here, he was hitting all over the place so I decided all I could do was fight," said the Russian, who made it to the last four in the last two Grand Slams in New York and Melbourne, respectively.