Nadal drops a set, pursuit of 14th stays alive
Rafael Nadal’s French Open set streak is over. His pursuit of a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title—including 14 at Roland Garros— remains very much intact.
Nadal shrugged off dropping a set in Paris for the first time in two years and regained control Wednesday, whipping violent forehands punctuated with first pumps and yells of “Vamos!” en route to a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 victory over 10thseeded Diego Schwartzman to reach the semifinals at the claycourt major tournament.
After taking the last nine games against Schwartzman, No. 3 seed Nadal will play in Friday’s semifinals against No. 1 Novak Djokovic, in what would be a rematch of last year’s final and their 58th meeting anywhere.
Nadal, who turned 35 last week, is now 105-2 for his career at Roland Garros. He is just two wins from eclipsing the men’s mark for most Grand Slam singles titles he currently shares with Roger Federer. In addition to his 13 trophies at Roland Garros— four in a row from 2005-08, five in a row from 2010-14 and another four in a row so far since 2017—the Spanish left-hander won four titles at the US Open, two at Wimbledon and one at the Australian Open.
Nadal entered his quarterfinal with a 35-set run at Roland Garros that began during the 2019 final. That grew to 36 on
Wednesday, before Schwartzman outplayed him for a stretch, surprisingly winning more of their exchanges that lasted at least nine strokes.
Ah, but what matters is who wins the match, and Nadal asserted himself quickly after Schwartzman was ahead 4-3 in the third.
Nadal would not drop another game, breaking to go up 5-4, before holding at love to take the third set. Then he broke again to open the fourth and really remove any remaining sense of suspense.
Schwartzman—now 1-11 versus Nadal, including a loss in the 2020 French Open semifinals—started muttering to himself and bounced his racket off the clay a moment before getting broken again to trail 3-0 in fourth, which Nadal won 6-0.
On Tuesday night, Daniil Medvedev’s campaign came to an end with an ill-judged underarm serve on match point followed by an impassioned outburst over his eagerlyawaited showdown with Stefanos Tsitsipas. The world number two was beaten 6-3, 7-6 (7/3), 7-5 by Greek fifth seed Tsitsipas who will face Germany’s Alexander Zverev for a place in the final.
It was only Tsitsipas’s second win over Medvedev in eight meetings and it ended in bizarre fashion. The Russian decided to serve underarm on match point down. But as he approached the net, hoping to finish the point with a volley, Tsitsipas merely fired a backhand winner beyond him.