Djokovic advances despite body aches
PARIS — The first obvious sign of trouble for Novak Djokovic came when he stepped out into Court Philippe Chatrier with a rather large square of beige athletic tape on the back of his neck.
The next indication came on the very first point of his French Open quarterfinal against Pablo Carreño Busta, when Djokovic let a ball toss drop and abandoned his serve mid-motion.
Soon enough, Djokovic was flexing and stretching his left arm or hitting it with his racket. Off to a slow start Wednesday night, Djokovic received massages from a trainer, righted himself and beat Carreño Busta 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 to reach the semifinals at Roland Garros for the 10th time.
“I definitely didn’t feel great coming into the court today. A few things happened in the warmup,” the No. 1-ranked Djokovic said, without going into specifics.
“I had some neck issues and some shoulder issues. I’ll just say that. I mean, I don’t want to get really too much into it. Obviously I’m still in the tournament, so I don’t want to reveal too much. I’m feeling OK,” said Djokovic, who will face No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas in Friday’s semifinals. “As the match progressed, I warmed up my body, and the pain kind of faded away. It allowed me to play better and better and feel better.”
He is right-handed, but the left side is important, too. He uses it for his twofisted backhand and to throw the ball in the air on serves. Whatever impediment there was to his play, whatever the pain level
One says it’s a “miracle” that she is playing at all. The other obsesses about winning. And both are coping better on court at the biggest tournaments in this pandemic year than any of their peers.
Petra Kvitova vs. Sofia Kenin in the French Open semifinals will pit two powerful hitters who are at very different points in their career arcs.
Kvitova, who by then already had two Wimbledon titles, was told by doctors she might never be competitive again after she was stabbed by an intruder at her home in the Czech Republic in December 2016. All five fingers on the left hand that she uses to hold her racket were injured and she sustained nerve and tendon damage.
Her 6-3, 6-3 victory Wednesday against Laura Siegemund, an unseeded German playing her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, marked another step back from that trauma for the 30year-old Czech who is returning to the semifinals at Roland Garros for the first time since 2012.