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Manoj BhagavatulaESPN
Defending champion Rafael Nadal and last year’s runner-up Novak Djokovic were both tested in the French Open quarterfinals on Wednesday, before they came through to set up a 58th career meeting. In the women’s draw, Iga Swiatek‘s title defence came to an end.
Here are the best stats from the quarterfinals:
14
Nadal’s 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 win over Argentine Diego Schwartzman puts him into his 14th French Open semifinal, extending his record for the most in men’s tennis. The second-most is 11 by Djokovic, who got to the mark with his 6-3, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-5 win over Italian Matteo Berrettini.
40
Djokovic is into his 40th Grand Slam semifinal, the second-most in men’s tennis after Roger Federer (45) and ahead of Nadal, who made his 35th major semifinal with his win over Schwartzman.
35
Nadal’s quarterfinal win was his 35th consecutive match victory at Roland Garros, making it the second-longest streak among men since the Open Era began in 1968. Nadal himself has the longest, with 39 straight wins from 2010-15.
36
Nadal’s streak of consecutive sets won, which began with the third set of the 2019 final, was snapped when he lost the second set to Schwartzman. It is the third-longest streak by any man at a single major in the Open Era, after Bjorn Borg at the French Open (41, 1979-81) and Nadal himself, also at the French Open (38, 2016-18). Coincidentally, Nadal’s streak of 38 was also broken by Schwartzman in the 2018 quarterfinals.
2
With her 6-4, 6-4 win over Swiatek, Maria Sakkari became the second Greek player, male or female, to reach a Grand Slam semifinal. The first is Stefanos Tsitsipas, who made his fourth major semifinal with his 6-3, 7-6 (3), 7-5 win over Russian Daniil Medvedev.
2
Sakkari’s win over Swiatek makes this just the second women’s major in the Open Era to feature four first-time Grand Slam semifinalists. The first was the 1978 Australian Open.
6
Swiatek’s loss also means this will be the sixth straight year of a first-time Grand Slam champion in the women’s draw at the French Open. That is the longest such streak at any of the four majors in the Open Era. In comparison, the last men’s first-time major winner at the French Open was Nadal in 2005.
3
This year’s French Open will be the third women’s Grand Slam in the Open Era to feature a semifinal without a top-10 seed. The first was Wimbledon 2018 (won by 11th seed Angelique Kerber) and the second was the 2018 US Open (won by 20th seed Naomi Osaka).
3
With his 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain, Alexander Zverev became the third German man in the Open Era to reach the semifinals at the French Open, after Boris Becker and Michael Stich. Stich was the last to do so in 1996, when he lost in the final to Yevgeny Kafelnikov.
1
With her 7-5, 4-6, 8-6 win over Paula Badosa of Spain, Tamara Zidansek became the first Slovenian player, male or female, to reach the quarterfinals or better at a Grand Slam since the country declared its independence in 1991.
(Stats courtesy of ESPN’s Statistics & Information Group)