Thiem falls in 5 at French Open
PARIS >> Diego Schwartzman played through the wind and rain, and into the dark of night, against Dominic Thiem at the French Open, contesting a total of 376 points spread out across five sets and 5 hours, 8 minutes, knowing all the while he’d never won a match of this magnitude.
Then, two points from defeat against the U.S. Open champion and two-time runner-up at Roland Garros, Schwartzman found his way and emerged with a 7- 6 (1), 5-7, 6-7 (6), 7- 6 (5), 6-2 victory Tuesday by taking the last four games against a fading Thiem.
The 12th-seeded Schwartzman, a 28-year-old from Argentina, entered this match with an 0-3 record in major quarterfinals. He acknowledged that weighed on him.
“I was just so nervous,” he said. “I saw the chance today.”
It was a grueling contest in which more than 100 of the points lasted at least nine strokes — frequently going past 20 or even 30 shots. Good as he is at speeding along the baseline on those kinds of extended exchanges, Schwartzman did some of his best work at the net, winning the point on 62% of his trips forward.
Schwartzman next will face 12time champion Rafael Nadal or 19-year-old Jannik Sinner of Italy.
Much earlier Tuesday, this tournament of upsets produced as surprising a women’s semifinalist as could be: Nadia Podoroska, a 23-year-old from Argentina who is ranked 131st and became the first female qualifier to get to the final four at Roland Garros in the Open era.
When she finished beating No. 3 seed Elina Svitolina 6-2, 6-4, Podoroska tossed her racket overhead and jutted her arms in the air. In the semifinals, she will face another unseeded player, 19-year-old Iga Swiatek of Poland, who eliminated Martina Trevisan of Italy 6-3, 6-1.
The other women’s quarterfinals are Wednesday: No. 4 seed Sofia Kenin against Danielle Collins, and No. 7 Petra Kvitova against Laura Siegemund.