Serena flirts with defeat in the Paris drizzle
Serena Williams flirted with defeat on Thursday in the drizzle and damp of Roland Garros. The 34-year-old defending champion made a hatful of errors at the invitation of Yulia Putintseva who attacked with safe, sober tennis. Williams looked baffled and as gloomy as the skies.
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It had all started so brightly. Williams broke the opening service of the 21-year-old who was appearing in her first grand slam quarter-final. But rather than cowering, the world number 60 showed she had the stomach for a fight. She broke back and then went toe-to-toe with the top seed.
She pounced when Williams served at 5-5 and, with a 6-5 lead, did not falter on her own service to become the first player at the tournament to take a set off Williams.
A semi-final place beckoned when she broke Williams at the start of the second set. But then came the roll. Four consecutive games gave Williams the ascendance which she then frittered away with sloppy play and cumbersome footwork.
She fluffed her chance to go 5-2 ahead. Instead it was 4-3. And the horror show continued. Williams squandered three break points and instead of being 5-3 up she was level at 4-4.
Worse nearly followed.
Williams had to save two break points to stop Putintseva from serving for the match. She held on to go 5-4 up and claimed the set when Putintseva double faulted. It was not the most stylish way to draw level. But the reprieve brought a new ruthlessness. Within a blink of the eye, it was 5-0 to the defending champion and she took the decider 6-1.
Williams will take on the unseeded Dutch player Kiki Bertens for a place in the final.
She saw off the eighth seed Timea Bacsinszky 7-5 6-2 to move into her first grand slam semi-final after seven years on the circuit.
Djokovic dispatches Berdych
The 24-year-old has played Williams once before. The American won it in straight sets. That seems to be default result when the Serbian world number one Novak Djokovic takes on Tomas Berdych.
The Czech hasn’t taken a set off him since the final of the Monte Carlo Masters in April 2015. The French Open quarter-final provided a similar fate for the 30-year-old in just over two hours. Djokovic mixed up his usual precision from the baseline with an array of drop shots to befuddle his 6ft 5in opponent.
“I used the tactic because I know that Tomas is a big man and doesn’t move as well as some of the players especially coming forward and going back,” Djokovic commented.
He will have to deploy other weapons from his arsenal to progress past his next adversary, Dominic Thiem.
Movement is not a weakness for the 22-year-old Austrian who has been identified by the sages as one of the young guns most likely to topple the established order.
He served notice of his intentions with an impressive victory over 15th seed David Goffin. The Belgian took the first set 6-4 and after winning an early break in the second was reined in. Goffin lost the tie-breaker 9-7. The third set was in the balance until Goffin served to make it 5-5. He failed and the loss of the set appeared to deplete him as Thiem ran away with the fourth 6-1.
“He’s one of the leaders of the new generation,” said Djokovic of Thiem. “I’m sure he’s very motivated to show himself and others that he deserves to be at the top and compete for the biggest titles. He’s playing the best tennis of his life - no doubt about it - and the results are showing that. He plays with a lot of speed and a lot of power and I’m sure he’s going to give it all in the semis but I have something to fight for as well.”
That something is the French Open crown which is the only major prize absent from the Djokovic trophy cabinet.
The men’s singles title would also tick an array of boxes. It would give him bragging rights over Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, the rivals of his generation. While Federer and Nadal are among the seven men to have won crowns at all four grand slam venues, neither of them has won four majors on the trot. The feat hasn’t been accomplished since Rod Laver’s second sweep of four in 1969.
Djokovic’s 12th grand slam title would allow him access to the pantheon. Thiem and either Stan Wawrinka or Andy Murray stand in his way of tennis immortality.
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