World No. 1 Novak Djokovic booked a quarterfinal spot in the French Open in a match waiting for three days to complete on Wednesday, while the last Frenchman in main draw Richard Gasquet was eliminated in last eight. Murray raced through the third set in 27 minutes, and eventually secured 13 of the last 15 games to secure the win.
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“(Stan) is obviously playing great tennis”, he said.
Wawrinka is the oldest semi-finalist in Paris since 32-year-old Jimmy Connors in 1985.
In similar fashion, Wawrinka went the full five in the first round against Lukas Rosol, who knows a thing or two about major upsets, but he has responded with straight-set victories in three of the last four matches, including a a 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 (7) drubbing of Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the quarters.
Defending champion Serena defeated 18th-seeded Elina Svitolina 6-1, 6-1.
“The match would have been totally different had I won the second but he played the beginning of the third set in a phenomenal way”.
Murray overcame some sloppy play to qualify for the semi-finals, beating Gasquet in four sets.
While world number one Novak Djokovic only finished his fourth-round match on Wednesday after the tie was delayed by rain, Wawrinka is already through to the last four.
PARIS (AP) – After two days of nearly incessant rain, the covers have come off the courts at the French Open and the skies, while still thick with clouds, have stopped dropping rain. He will be playing in his 10th successive Roland Garros quarter-final and 36th of his Grand Slam career. He’s never lost to Bautista Agut.
“With my coaching team, we had some tough talks on Tuesday night”, said Djokovic, who had struggled in the heavy conditions when he had uncharacteristically dropped serve five times. “But I’m very satisfied that I won this in three sets”, he said courtside.
Then he trailed 3-1 in the second-set tiebreaker, a critical moment.
Serena will take on another unexpected quarterfinalist in the shape of Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, who beat Spanish 12th seed Carla Suarez Navarro 7-5, 7-5.
Murray also happened to be in the form of his clay life, arriving in Paris with a semi run in Monte-Carlo, finals of Madrid and the title in Rome-and having beaten Rafael Nadal and Djokovic along the way.
The 29-year-old Serb was 4-1 ahead in the third when rain cut short yesterday’s play and he wasted no time in wrapping up the set on the resumption of the match by winning the first two games.
No. 4 seed Garbine Muguruza and 21st seed Samantha Stosur of Australia made respective easy promotion to set up semifinal encounter against each other.
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Both Radwanska and Halep were furious at being made to play in the rain and accused tournament officials of not caring about the players. “Whether I do, we’ll have to wait and see”.
