BEVERLY HILLS, October 09, (THEWILL) – In what initially appeared to be a comfortable cruise to straight sets victory, Novak Djokovic had to endure a heroic fightback from Stefanos Tsitsipas to book a final showdown with Rafael Nadal at the 2020 French Open.
The Greek fifth seed spluttered into action belatedly against the World No. 1 on Court Philippe-Chatrier to force the tie into a fourth set. He found enough drive to even push it into a fifth. But, that was as far as he could push and there was to be no crowning moment for Tsitsipas. He failed to rouse himself in the decider and eventually succumbed 6-3 6-2 5-7 4-6 6-1.
Djokovic was gracious as always to acknowledge his Greek opponent’s efforts. “We have to congratulate Stefanos for this great battle. In the end he was tired obviously, it was not easy after four hours,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview.
The Serbian breezed through the first two sets against a tepid Tsitsipas with ease, then broke serve at 4-4 in the third to lay a firm hand on a ticket to the final.
That appeared to have woken Tsitsipas from his slumber to find his way out of danger, to up the tempo on his groundstrokes and ultimately to fluster the top seed. And that was what he did.
In a sensational spell, the Greek fifth seed saved a match point, broke Djokovic, held serve, then broke his opponent again to earn the unlikeliest of fourth sets. The pair traded breaks at the start of the fourth before Djokovic seized the ascendancy again, peppering the Tsitsipas serve only to blow eight break points on the spin.
To his credit, Tsitsipas held serve to 5-4 and then repeated his heroics of the previous set to whip the reduced and socially-distanced crowd into a frenzy as the impossible comeback suddenly looked alive.
However, when expectations of an epic decider were highest, that was where the drama ended. A wounded Tsitsipas, who had earlier received treatment on his thigh, was out of steam and Djokovic reeled off six games on the spin to triumph in three hours and 58 minutes.
Djokovic will bid for a second French Open title, and an 18th Grand Slam, against the omnipresent champion Nadal on Sunday.
In that match, THEWILL hopes he will avoid a repeat of the two-set concession he survived in this semi-final. On his most favourite surface in his most favourite slam, Nadal will not be as generous.
“Here, he [Nadal] is the favourite, it’s his home here. With all the titles he’s won… but in 2015 I won here against him in the quarter-finals,” Djokovic said in acknowledgement of that fact.
“I hope I can recuperate, I need my best tennis. It’s maybe the biggest challenge in our sport to play Nadal at Roland Garros.”
He is right.
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