NADAL BEATS SINNER TO REACH 13TH FRENCH SEMIFINAL

Diego Schwartzman had to play for more than five hours to defeat the thirdseeded Dominic Thiem in five sets at Roland Garros, while Rafael Nadal required just three sets to beat Jannik Sinner, an unseeded 19-yearold Italian.

But Nadal and Schwartzman, who will play in the semifinals on Friday, both had to overcome significant obstacles during the longest session of tennis ever at the French Open.

It began on Tuesday morning and ended today at nearly 1:30 a.m. Paris time as Nadal finished off Sinner with a leaping overhead, 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-1.

By then, Schwartzman was back in the players’ hotel near the Eiffel Tower, recovering from his grueling duel with Thiem.

Schwartzman was so shaky when it came time to close out sets against Thiem but so solid when he most needed to be.

Schwartzman’s reward was a 7-6 (1), 5-7, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (5), 6-2 victory that put him into a Grand Slam singles semifinal for the first time.

The match was a classic clay-court tussle, full of long slides and extended rallies, many of which stretched past 20 strokes and left both men f luttering their lips or puffing out their cheeks. But it was hardly just a baseline struggle. Schwartzman went to the net 71 times; Thiem 53, often to track down a deft drop shot.

Schwartzman, the No. 12 seed from Argentina, often looked like the fresher man, but Thiem — who won his first major title at the U.S. Open last month, just 14 days before the French Open began — can scrap for points as well as end them in a hurry with thunderous groundstrokes, and he kept pushing and swinging away.

For quite some time, Schwartzman kept cracking. With Thiem serving at 4-5 in the second set, Schwartzman had a straightforward forehand near the net that he would typically have smacked for a winner to take a 15-40 lead and give himself two set points. Instead, Schwartzman missed into the net and Thiem went on to hold and even the match at one set apiece.

Schwartzman also served for the third set at 5-3, only to be broken at love, making four unforced errors.

It looked as if he might not be able to break the bad habit when he served for the fourth set at 5-4 and took a 40-love lead. Thiem saved all three set points, the last with a forehand winner on the run, and broke Schwartzman’s serve. But Schwartzman, often frustrated with himself and his team after Tuesday’s earlier disappointments, smiled through the pain this time.

Schwartzman then broke Thiem’s serve twice in the fifth set, and the friendly rivals were soon chatting and grinning at the net, their 5hour, 8-minute test complete.

“I just told him that he deserves it,” Thiem said.

Earlier Tuesday, Nadia Podoroska became the first qualifier to reach the women’s singles semifinals at the French Open in the Open era. Podoroska, ranked 131st and playing for the first time in the main draw at Roland Garros, upset the No. 3 seed, Elina Svitolina, 6-2, 6-4.

It was Podoroska’s first singles match against a top 20 opponent, but however improbable on paper, the result looked nothing but logical on clay as their match unfolded.

It was the latest bravura performance by a new arrival this year, and it guaranteed that there would be an unseeded woman in the singles final. Podoroska will next face Iga Swiatek, a 19-yearold from Poland who overwhelmed the No. 1 seed, Simona Halep, in the fourth round and defeated Martina Trevisan, an Italian qualifier, 6-3, 6-1, on Tuesday.