#RolandGarros #Croatian #Marin #Cilic #qualifies #super #tiebreak #Russian #Andrey #Rublev
Continuation of the semifinals of Roland-Garros, Wednesday 1Ahem June. The Croatian giant Marin Cilic (20me) took the best in five sets over the Russian Andrey Rublev (7me) after a marathon match. In the night session, the Norwegian Casper Ruud (8me) is compared to the Danish nugget Holger Rune.
Among women, the number one in the world, the Polish Iga Swiatek, surpassed the American Jessica Pegula (11me) in two sets (6-3, 6-2). She will meet, in the next round, the Russian Daria Kasatkina, who narrowly beat her compatriot Veronika Kudermetova (6-4, 7-6).
Marin Cilic solid in key moments
Croatian Marin Cilic overcame Russian Andrey Rublev after a five-set match (5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (10-2)) in four ten hours. Despite his 71 unforced errors, the 2014 US Open winner ended up overcoming the resistance of the number 7 seed, thanks mainly to the quality of his serve (33 aces) and his volley. This is the first super tie-break (in ten points) played in the central Roland-Garros
The 20th seed, Cilic was more solid than Rublev in key moments. Despite sometimes heroic resistance, the latter was too fickle to prevail. It is the first time in fifteen appearances that the Croatian, who crushed world number two Daniil Medvedev in the previous round, has reached the Roland-Garros semi-finals.
“The fifth set was an incredible battle. Andrew [Rublev] he played so well… Today is my day, but he was unlucky”Marin Cilic said after the meeting.
At 33 years old, he becomes the fifth active player to have reached the semi-finals in all four Grand Slam tournaments, along with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. He is the first Croatian player to achieve such a performance.
Iga Swiatek on the way
Without suspense, Iga Swiatek won in two sets (6-3, 6-2) and one hour twenty-nine over Jessica Pegula (28), seed number 11. In this disjointed match between two solid players from the baseline, where unforced errors outnumbered by winners, Swiatek outplayed big points. Pegula, who couldn’t convert her many break points, may regret it.
This is the thirty-third consecutive victory for Iga Swiatek, the last survivor of this top ten tournament in the ranking of the Tennis Players Association (WTA). The young Polish woman, who celebrated her 21st birthday on Tuesdayme anniversary, she will face Daria Kasatkina on Thursday. This will be the second semi-final at Roland-Garros for which she won the 2020 edition of the tournament.
Daria Kasatkina, first half at Grand Slam
Daria Kasatkina prevailed, not without scares, on Wednesday against another Russian, Veronika Kudermetova, in straight sets. As she led a set to nothing and served out the match at 5-4, Kasatkina watched her opponent bounce back. Ditto during the decider: the one yet to drop a set at the Paris tournament held five match points (6-1), but Kudermetova didn’t let go and went back to 6-5, before cracking on a buffer.
“I discovered clay quite late, around 10 years old I think. In Russia we don’t have many clay courts. But, from the beginning, I loved this surface. I found it very intuitive. You can do so many different shots there. Now I even prefer dirt to hard surfaces”said, in 2018, the former junior tournament winner (2014), whose best performance at Porte d’Auteuil was a quarter-final that year, against American Sloane Stephens.
quote of the day
“In our time, and as a woman, also as a former player, I don’t feel bad or it seems unfair to say that there is currently more attraction to men’s games”said Amélie Mauresmo, director of Roland-Garros, on Wednesday.
Faced with the difficulty of scheduling the matches of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, the former world number one defended the highlighting of the men’s matches by the greats “attraction” what are they presenting. “I admit it, it was difficult to find couple of the day in the women’s draw more than once. (…) Since we only have one game in the night session, it’s hard to make this choice., she admitted. Of the ten night sessions of the fortnight, only one women’s match was selected, in the second round, facing the French number one, Alizé Cornet, against Jelena Ostapenko, the winner of the 2017 tournament. On the other hand, of the twenty matches that started at 11 am on the Suzanne-Lenglen court, a time when there are usually fewer crowds, eighteen were matches in the women’s draw.