Djokovic in semifinal at Roland Garros, Khachanov defeated

Mission accomplished. Novak Djokovic loses the first set of his Roland Garros, wins in comeback and takes the semifinal. The Serbian, number 3 in the world and on the board, overtook the Russian in the quarterfinals Karen Khachanov – Sonego’s executioner in the round of 16 – with a score of 4-6 7-6(0) 6-2 6-4. For ‘Nole’ it is the semifinal number 45 in a Grand Slam, -1 from Federer’s record, and it is the 12th in Paris where only Nadal (15) has hit more. For a place in the final Djokovic will face the winner of the quarter scheduled for tonight between the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraznumber 1 in the world and in seeding, and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipasfifth strength of the board.

Against Khachanov, Djokovic took a while to get into the game. In the first set he didn’t have a break point, he made 17 free errors against 12 winners. In the second set both players held serve without conceding a break point, but Djokovic dominated the tie break. The Serbian still committed a large number of free kicks (14), but compensated for them with the same number of winners. In the third set the winner of 22 Grand Slams raised the level of his game considerably, placed 4 aces, did not commit double faults, won 91% of points on first serve and 100% on second serve, broke twice the serve to Khachanov without conceding a break point to the Russian and finished with 19 winners and only one unforced error. At the beginning of the fourth set Djokovic went up 3-1, he had two balls to move up 5 to 2 before giving up his serve and bringing Khachanov back into the match (4-4). A small empty pass from which the Serbian immediately recovered by breaking his opponent’s serve to zero and closing after 3 hours and 38 minutes of play.

Women, Sabalenka-Muchova semifinal

Defined the first semifinal of the women’s tournament. The Belarusian Aryna Sabalenkaworld number 2 and second seed, beat the ukraine in the quarterfinals Elina Svitolina, number 192 in the WTA ranking, with a score of 6-4 6-4 in one hour and 36 minutes. As widely predictable at the end of the match, Ukraine, which has always been in the front row against the war, did not want to shake hands with its rival Belarus. “I don’t know why he was waiting, because my statements were quite clear about the handshake,” Svitolina said after the match. “I will not sell my country to people like these,” Svitolina added harshly. Speaking later at the press conference, Sabalenka replied by saying that “I don’t support war. And I don’t want sport to be involved in politics, because I’m just a tennis player. If I wanted to do politics, I wouldn’t be here”. Pressed by journalists on the president of her country, Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian reiterated: “I do not support the war, which means that I do not support Lukashenko at this moment”.

In the semifinal Sabalenka will face the Czech Karolina Muchova43 in the world, which surpassed the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, finalist in Paris in 2021, 7-5 6-2. Muchova will play the second semifinal in a Grand Slam after the one in Australia in 2021.