At that point, I wasn’t playing my best, but she was just playing some different tennis and I just wasn’t used to it.
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“I was lucky there, that’s all”, an irritated Djokovic said. I feel fine. I wanted to finish up everything since I play pretty early – not too early, but pretty early tomorrow’. Bertens has dropped just two sets this tournament and has played 42 games in her last two matches.
Thursday’s quarter-final was played out in a damp chill where temperatures slumped to 12 degrees on Court Philippe Chatrier.
“In the second set I didn’t really think that I’m going to win this match because he was just on top of me”, Thiem said. She spun a second serve off the tape, the ball sputtered long and the server twirled her racquet in disgust knowing she had let opportunity slip.
– Williams is chasing her 22nd major championship, which would tie her with Steffi Graf in the Open era and move her within two of Margaret Court’s all-time record.
“I’m very pleased to be in semifinals of another Grand Slam”, Djokovic said after reaching his 30th major semifinal.
On the other side of the net is Garbine Muguruza, making the French Open semi-finals for the first time.
There are injury concerns hovering over her Dutch adversary and Williams will aim to get the job done as quickly as possible.
Djokovic will next face No 13 seed Dominic Thiem.
A 13-time Grand Slam doubles victor with Venus, she also became the first female player in the history of the game to win singles and doubles titles at the Olympics and all four major tournaments.
The 29-year-old top seed, who already holds the Wimbledon, US and Australian Open titles, will start as overwhelming favourite.
In the final quarterfinal match, Bertens immediately broke Bacsinszky to jump to a 2-0 second-set lead.
Whatever Serena gameplanned to do in the match either wasn’t working or she was unable to execute it.
But Bertens saved three break points in the seventh game to take a 5-2 lead. Their quarterfinals were Wednesday.Djokovic beat Tomas Berdych 6-3, 7-5, 6-3, while Thiem eliminated David Goffin 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4, 6-1.The most noteworthy moment of Djokovics victory: Angered by missing a shot, he tried to spike his racket, but it flew out of his right hand and sailed not far from where a line judge stood. But 21-year-old Yulia Putintseva made sure that the defending champion had to work extra hard for the coveted place in the last-four.
Both these players have two Grand Slams apiece, but Wawrinka faces the pressure of defending his French Open title. Bertens enters with a 12-match winning streak, the latest a 7-5, 6-2 victory over No. 8 Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland.
The match originally was scheduled for Monday, but showers forced cancellation of an entire day of play at Roland Garros for the first time in 16 years.
“I thought I just can’t go out in straight sets”, Williams said.
The momentum had swung Williams’s way and the American crushed Putintseva in the decider, wrapping it up on her fourth match point with an unreturnable serve.
After winning the first two sets, Djokovic was even with Berdych at 3-3 when they stopped playing because of rain.
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She paid the price for a sloppy 11th game with Putintseva grabbing the chance to pull off a second break and then serving out to love for the set.
