Marco Cecchinato played the match of his life to reach the semi-finals at Roland-Garros after a shock 6-3, 7-6 (4), 1-6, 7-6 (11) victory over Novak Djokovic.
Coming into this year’s French Open, the Italian had not even won a Grand Slam match, and now he is one victory away from reaching his first final.
From the first set it looked like Cecchinato had continued the form that saw him reach this quarter-final. He was never troubled on his serve. Djokovic had to save two break-points in the second game, but he could not do the same in the fourth as the Italian took a 3-1 lead. Djokovic could not get the break he needed and conceded the first set 6-3.
Djokovic started the second in the worst possible manner after losing his serve in the very first game. The 2016 champion broke back in the fourth to level the set 2-2. Late in the second set the former world No 1 let out an almighty roar after great defence resulted in a wayward smash from the Italian and edged the Serbian towards the set. However, his frustrations mounted as three set points vanished at 6-5 and Cecchinato cracked an inside-out forehand winner to force the tie-break. Saving those set-points clearly gave Cecchinato a confidence boost as he won the tie-break 7-4 to take a two-set lead.
With his semi-final hopes hanging by a thread Djokovic knew that he had to dig deep to get back into the match. And he did exactly that by ramping up his aggression and precision, while the shots Cecchinato was cracking in the first two sets began to miss the mark. Djokovic won five games in a row to take the third set 6-1.
It looked like Djokovic would stage an epic comeback when he took a 3-0 lead early in the third. Cecchinato had to pull out all the shots to keep him from breaking again in the sixth game, saving three break-points. Djokovic led 5-2 in the fourth set and served for it at 5-3 but a tight game culminated with Cecchinato clattering a forehand winner to steal back the initiative and force another tie-break.
In an astonishing period of play that lasted over 20 minutes, Djokovic squandered three set-points and Cecchinato needed four match-points to win the tie-break 13-11 and became the first Italian man to feature in a Grand Slam semi-final since Corrado Barazzutti in 1978.
In the other men’s match on Tuesday, Dominic Thiem roared into his third successive Roland-Garros semi-final but, sadly, not in the manner he would have wanted as he pummelled his great friend Alexander Zverev in their eagerly-awaited quarter-final clash. Zverev was reduced to a shadow of his true self with a hamstring injury and could not produce the tennis that saw him reach the quarter-finals.
Thiem knew it was cruel on one of his great friends, but he also recognised he could not afford to show one shred of sympathy to a wounded Zverev. Thiem was rampant in his 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 victory that lasted just under two hours.
On the women’s side, Madison Keys progressed to her first Grand Slam semi-final after defeating Yulia Putintseva 7-6 (5), 6-4. Keys, who is yet to drop a set on the Paris clay will face Sloane Stephens in a rematch of last year’s US Open final for a place in the Roland-Garros final.
Stephens reached that semi-final after completely dismantling Russia’s Daria Kasatkina 6-3, 6-1. The American came into the match after easing passed Anett Kontaveit, so she will head into the semi-final against Keys – who she has never lost to – full of confidence.
Photo: Philippe Montigny /FFT
