Novak Djokovic, defending champion, inflicted a severe defeat on Friday on Italian hopeful Lorenzo Musetti (23rd in the world) 6-0, 6-3 and thus returns to the semi-finals of the Masters 1000 in Paris for the eighth time.
The Serb, currently 7th in the world, will face Saturday Stefanos Tsitsipas (5th) or the American Tommy Paul (31st), who beat Rafael Nadal in the 2nd round for a place in the final.
On Friday, Djokovic, who is visibly thirsty for play and victories at the end of this season truncated for him by his refusal of the COVID vaccine, swallowed the first round in 24 minutes, without giving his young opponent the slightest chance (20 year).
He continued by winning the first game of the second set, but he started to make some mistakes which allowed Musetti to regain some confidence. The Italian then won his first game and immediately managed a break to lead 2-1.
Stung, Djokovic pulled himself together and won the next four games to regain control of the match (5-2) and win his face-off.
In total, he will play his 74th Masters 1000 semi-final, the fourth in a row at Bercy. Only Rafael Nadal did better (76).
Djokovic, not vaccinated against COVID, could not participate in the summer tour on the American continent and was thus deprived of competition for more than two months after his title at Wimbledon in July. But since his return to the circuit at the end of September, he has been on a series of 12 consecutive wins with titles in Tel Aviv and Astana before coming to Paris.
Tsitsipas rejoint Djokovic
The Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, 5th in the world, dismissed the American Tommy Paul (31st) 6-2, 6-4 on Friday to reach the semi-finals where he will face Djokovic.
“It was a very good match today, in terms of level and intensity, from start to finish”, welcomed the winner who had never exceeded the quarters (reached in 2019) of the tournament. Parisian.
The 24-year-old Tsitsipas clearly dominated Paul in the first set by breaking the lead in to break away 3-0, then taking the opposing serve a second time to close the set.
The match was balanced in the second set where each player held his serve until 5-4 in favor of Tsitsipas.
Paul, who had won his last three service games white, then conceded the break without scoring a single point and thus let Tsitsipas join the four aces.
