Published on : 09/06/2021 – 14:14
The quarter-finals end this Wednesday at Roland-Garros. The two favorites, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, will have to win their respective duels to face each other in the next round.
Quarter-finals, continuation and end. At the end of the day of Wednesday, June 9, all the semi-finalists of the 2021 edition of Roland-Garros will be known. In women, Barbora Krejcikova took her place. In men, Rafael Nadal must win his against Diego Schwartzmann. In the evening, Novak Djokovic will have the honor of the first night session in the history of the Parisian tournament for his match against the Italian Matteo Berrettini.
• Barbora Krejcikova qualified for her first Grand Slam semi-final
Barbora Krejcikova, 33e world player in the WTA rankings, qualified for her first Grand Slam semi-final by dismissing the young American prodigy Cori Gauff (25e) in two sets, 7-6 (8/6), 6-3.
“I don’t realize. I came here after winning in Strasbourg, which was very nice, but I never imagined that I would be here today, on this court, especially in singles. winning like that is something I never imagined, ”Krejcikova said.
Winner of Roland-Garros 2018 in doubles with her compatriot Katerina Siniakova, she reached Saturday for the second consecutive year the knockout stages in singles, which remained to date her best result in Grand Slam.
Mistreated in the first set, where she saved a set point at 5-3 on Gauff’s service and then two more at 6-5, the Czech managed to push her opponent to the tie-break.
“Coco” Gauff had two more set points 6 points to 4, but the Czech then lined up four points and pocketed the set after 73 minutes of play.
“The first set was very important, I was behind for a long time, but I just played and I got through it as best I could. Then I started the second set well,” said Krejcikova.
This second set was indeed almost one-sided, Krejcikova quickly coming out 5-0. But in view of a qualification for the last four, it experienced a slump. Especially when she served for the game at 5-1. She immediately obtained three consecutive match points (40-0), but lost them all, and particularly harvested the third. After opening up all the way, she completely missed the ultimate longline backhand that was to give her the game but which went way out of bounds. In the process, Gauff remade one of his late breaks.
In the next game, the American saved two more match points before coming back to 5-3.
But on her serve, Krejcikova again led 40-0 with three match points in a row and this time the first (the sixth overall) was the correct one.
The 25-year-old Czech will face Polish defending champion Iga Swiatek on Thursday (9e) or the Greek Maria Sakkari (18e) to try to reach the final.
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