Inevitably, the Spaniard did not disappoint his public. A game away from victory when the revelry broke out in earnest, he was soon rifling one last backhand winner past Casper Ruud, the Norwegian eighth seed, to complete a 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 victory that sealed his 14th French Open title. Fourteen. The previous record of eight titles, set by the Frenchman Max Decugis in the early years of the 20th century, had stood for 100 years before Nadal broke it in 2014. The benchmark he has established since could endure for eternity. 

To put the achievement in context, Nadal has now won as many majors at Roland Garros alone as Pete Sampras won in his entire career. How unlikely that seemed when Sampras won the US Open in 2002, pulling two clear of Roy Emerson at the top of the grand slam leaderboard before quietly drifting into retirement. 

Many thought Nadal might go the same way after Sunday’s final. He now stands in a near-identical position to the great American, his 22nd slam leaving him two ahead of Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. The allure of whiling away time in his yacht off the Mallorcan coast with family and friends must be increasing by the day. 

The deformed navicular bone in his foot that has troubled him since his teens, and which threatened to end his career last season when the pain finally became too much, forcing him off the tour for months, has hung over him like a cloud at Roland Garros, constantly threatening to rain on his Parisian parade. The most recent flareup saw him limp to defeat against Denis Shapovalov in Rome on the eve of the tournament, and at one point there were genuine doubts over whether he would turn up. But even at 36, and after all he has achieved in the game, his love of the sport and addiction to the adrenaline rush of competition are undiminished. He assured the crowd afterwards that he would “keep fighting to try to keep going”.  

By the time Nadal reached the final, having battled past Felix Auger-Aliassime in five gruelling sets, ridden countless momentum shifts to avenge last year’s semi-final defeat to Novak Djokovic, and weathered a seemingly irresistible surge from Alexander Zverev before the German suffered a horrific ankle injury, concerns about the state of his health were beginning to feel misplaced. Not for the Spaniard, however. Having refused to talk about the issue during the tournament, he revealed afterwards that an “amazing and very emotional two weeks” had only been made possible by multiple anaesthetic injections to numb the pain in his foot. 

“I was able to play during these two weeks with extreme conditions,” said Nadal. “I have been playing with injections on the nerves to sleep the foot, and that’s why I was able to play during these two weeks, because I have no feelings in my foot, because my doctor was able to put anaesthetic injections on the nerves. That takes out the feeling on my foot. But at the same time, it’s a big risk in terms of less feelings, a little bit bigger risk of turning your ankle or producing other [problems] there.  

“Of course, Roland Garros is Roland Garros. Everybody know how much this tournament means to me, so I wanted to keep trying and to give myself a chance here.  That was the only way to give myself a chance, no? So I did it. And I can’t be happier, and I can’t thank my doctor enough for all the things he did during all my tennis career, helping me in every tough moment. But it’s obvious that I can’t keep competing with the foot asleep.”

Nadal said he would undergo radiofrequency ablation, a pain-management method that uses heat to deaden nerve tissue, in an effort to carry on. Failing that, he said, surgery may be required, although there would be no guarantee of success. He is only a month into his return from the fractured rib he suffered in Indian Wells, and sometimes you wonder why he continues to put himself through all the pain and the comebacks.

“What drives me to keep going is not about the competition to try to be the best or to win more grand slams than the others,” sad Nadal. “What drives me to keep going is the passion for the game, to live moments that stay inside me forever, and play in front of the best crowds in the world and the best stadiums. That’s what drives me, no? The passion for what I do.”

Ruud, who has trained at Nadal’s academy for the past four years, gave everything in his first grand slam final. The problem for the Norwegian was that, for all his undoubted class, he remains something of a Rafa lite. A fine clay-courter with a big forehand and solid defensive skills, Ruud underscored his quality last summer with a run of three consecutive titles on the red dirt, winning in Bastad, Gstaad and Kitzbühel. Yet the 23-year-old is not equipped with the weaponry to trouble Nadal on his favourite surface. His service lacks weight and his levels of spin, power and athleticism pale in comparison to those of the Spaniard. As a result, he was increasingly forced out of his comfort zone, over-pressing and lapsing into error with ever greater frequency as the contest evolved.  

The difference between the two men was underscored in the second game, when Ruud, attempting to fend off the second of two break points, gambolled into the net behind a whipped forehand. It looked to all intents and purposes a decent shot, until Nadal swept a forehand past him of infinitely greater pace, precision and spin. It was a chalk and cheese moment, one that did much to support the pre-match narrative of master against apprentice. It was also a reminder that practising with the Spaniard is a far cry from facing him in his own backyard.

“It’s really challenging and really tough,” said Ruud. “His numbers speak for themselves. He has never lost a final here, and there is a reason why.

“It is tough to describe. I mean, he plays the same style in practice and matches. He takes the practices very seriously, and so do I. If we practice and play sets, I think we both want to try to win.  

“But the circumstances were a bit different today. It was the first time I have experienced this situation and played a grand slam final. I don’t think it really got to me until I stepped on court and saw the full stadium and felt the atmosphere in the crowd. It was a bit tough to find myself comfortable in the situation in the beginning. 

“As the match went on, I tended to feel a little bit better and I could calm down and breathe out a little bit more. But it was challenging because you are playing him, the most winning-slam player ever, and on this court in the final it’s not too easy.”

Having fallen behind, Ruud was unexpectedly handed an immediate route back into the set by an error-strewn Nadal service game. Then, at the start of game four, after hammering away one of his best forehands of the afternoon, Ruud cast a little look down the court towards Nadal. Whatever he was looking for, he did not find it. Perhaps unnerved by his opponent’s imperturbable demeanour, he began to seek a level of power beyond his natural threshold. A forehand fizzed wide. Nadal went into lockdown mode. Inevitably, a second break followed. 

Now Nadal was warming to his task. The famed whiplash forehand started to land with unerring venom and bite, flying up off the clay as though launched from high up in the stands. Ruud showed some delightful touches – a delicious drop shot, loaded with backspin, that the sliding Spaniard got nowhere near, a beautifully timed volley as he served to stay in the set at 2-5 – but the opener was only going one way. 

Relaxed smiles were exchanged in the Nadal box. Chants of “Ra-fa! Ra-fa!” reverberated around Chatrier, just as they have so often over the past fortnight. In the autumn of his career, the indifference towards his excellence once shown by the pro-Federer locals has given way to a deep affection.

Ruud was far from done. Having dropped the first set against Marin Cilic in the semi-finals, he had fought his way back by switching to a more aggressive key, and now he made a similar change of tack. He moved inside the baseline, seeking to dictate with his forehand. He began to live with Nadal in the rallies. He also leavened the mix with some fine touch play. 

Ruud needed all his resourcefulness to escape the opening game of set two, in which Nadal spurned three break points. Having seen off the danger, however, he began to play his best tennis of the afternoon. One forehand pick-up, flicked nonchalantly across the face of the net at an angle so extreme the ball almost ended up in Nadal’s racket bag, drew applause from the Spaniard. Nadal was unsettled, errors creeping into his game. A double fault handed Ruud a love break, and suddenly the man from Oslo was 3-1 ahead.

The reaction was instant. Nadal pressed, stepping in to drill a crosscourt backhand, only for Ruud to pull off a blistering forehand recovery shot before crushing a winner. Nadal pressed harder, spinning the ball high above the Norwegian’s shoulders. Ruud hit back with a blazing forehand. But the pressure was building, and the next big forehand went long. A patient point from Nadal prised another error from the Norwegian, and the contest was as good as over. Nadal would not lose another game. The party had begun. It remains to be seen whether there will be many happy returns.

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There have been some lopsided women’s finals at the French Open down the years, and it is testimony to Gauff’s talent and tenacity that she survived her first grand slam final with her dignity intact as Swiatek tightened her stranglehold at the top of the game with a 6-1, 6-3 victory, claiming her second title in three years on the Parisian clay. 

How best to measure the dominance of the world No 1? This was her 35th victory in a row, surpassing Serena Williams to equal the longest winning run this century, set by Venus Williams in 2000. It was also her sixth straight tournament win and ninth successive victory in a final. All have been won in straight sets. If Barty slowed the revolving door of women’s champions with her victories at Wimbledon and the Australian Open, Swiatek has brought it to a shuddering halt. 

“It may seem pretty weird, but having that 35th win and doing something more than Serena did, it’s something special,” said Swiatek. “I always wanted to have some kind of a record. In tennis it’s pretty hard, after Serena’s career. So basically that really hit me. Obviously winning a grand slam, too. But this was pretty special, because I felt like I’ve done something that nobody has ever done, and maybe it’s going to be even more.”  

A bundle of hyperactive energy at the best of times, Swiatek went into overdrive at the moment of victory. She fell to her knees, the signature move of so many great champions. But Swiatek doesn’t do inertia and, as she sat on her heels, her fists continued to pump furiously, almost as though her arms were rebelling against the sudden torpor of her legs.

She was quickly up again and, after a consolatory word for Gauff, Swiatek raced to her box. From her coach Tomasz Wiktorowski to her psychologist Daria Abramowicz to her physical trainer Maciej Ryszczuk, she barely knew who to hug first. All sported T-shirts bearing the legend: “You didn’t wake up to be ordinary #Iga”. As recent months have emphasised, and the past fortnight has categorically confirmed, she is anything but that. 

Meanwhile, Gauff sat disconsolate in her chair, quietly weeping. Her time will come. Four years ago, the 18-year-old won the junior title in Paris, and her serene progress to this final offered further evidence of her clay-court abilities. Yet Gauff had not faced a player ranked in the top 30 in her previous matches. The gap in quality between the world No 23 and the world’s best was just too great to bridge. 

“I didn’t really think about the statistics or record of my opponent going into the match,” said Gauff. “But I think she does a good job of taking the pressure moments and really rising to the occasion, and today she rose to the occasion. I do that pretty well too, but today she was just on another level.”

In truth, she has been on another level for months. As her chief rivals fell by the wayside, tumbling so rapidly that by the time she reached the last-16 she was the only top-10 player left standing, Swiatek remained the one star who could not be dimmed. She dropped just one set over the fortnight, dominating her opponents so completely that even the occasional failure to hold serve left ripples of minor astonishment in its wake. 

Against Gauff, Swiatek was equal parts brutal and imperious. Brutal because she went in hard, early and relentlessly on her opponent’s weaknesses, peppering the American’s weaker forehand side with groundstrokes of explosive power and spin, and dealing mercilessly with any serve that fell short. Imperious because even when Gauff managed to keep pace in the baseline exchanges, as she did with growing frequency after a one-sided opening set, she was often reduced to the role of a bystander at her own execution, Swiatek shifting gear to unleash winners of devastating force and precision. 

There was a glimmer of hope for Gauff in the sixth game when, having belatedly made an impression on the scoreboard by holding serve to trail 4-1, she reached 30-30 on the Swiatek serve. The Pole responded by hurling herself at a high ball to hammer away a forehand. On the next point, a meaty rally ended with another searing forehand winner. Such was the pattern of the contest.

“She really didn’t give me anything,” said Gauff. “Every time I thought I hit a good ball, it wasn’t. There is a reason why she’s on a winning streak.”

Gauff broke in the opening game of the second set and consolidated her advantage with an impressive service game that began with an ace and ended with a rare forehand winner. Briefly, the 15,000-strong Court Philippe Chatrier crowd was invigorated. But it was to prove a false dawn for the American. Swiatek, who has become so accustomed to dealing with pressure situations over the course of her winning run, broke back immediately before racing into a 5-2 lead.

“It’s not easy to cope with the different atmosphere and the pressure [of a grand slam],” said Swiatek. “I felt the baggage. The hardest thing is not letting yourself think about that and overanalyse, and not letting yourself think about all the numbers and the odds. 

“I have been doing that for a few months now, and for sure, two weeks here were harder. But it’s part of the work and I’m getting better and better at it, and that’s also something that I’m proud of.”

With Wimbledon just over three weeks away, Swiatek said she would return home to Warsaw for a few days’ rest before beginning her preparations for the All England Club, where she was the junior champion four years ago. Just turned 21, she could rule the women’s game for years to come.

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Deep into the second set of a contest of mesmerising quality and drama, Zverev fell awkwardly after lunging to retrieve a forehand. As the German crashed to the court, screaming and writhing in agony, the seriousness of the situation was immediately apparent. Nadal swiftly made his way over to check on his wounded rival, looking on with concern as Zverev, his clothing caked in clay and his features still contorted in anguish, was helped into a wheelchair and escorted off court. Ten minutes later, Zverev returned on crutches to shake hands with the chair umpire. Nadal was through to his 14th French Open final. Never will his passage to the last Sunday have felt less joyous.

It was a desperately cruel conclusion to what had been an utterly absorbing match. With just over three hours gone and only one set completed, the contest was poised to go into a second-set tiebreak with Nadal leading 7-6 (10-8), 6-6. So hard-fought had the exchanges been, so intense the focus and commitment of both men, it looked as though the battle would rage late into the evening. Instead, it ended with the third-seeded Zverev sharing a warm embrace with Nadal before departing to a standing ovation. As he left, the 25-year-old waved to the crowd with his crutches. After a troubled year on and off the court, he will rarely have felt more public warmth. How he will wish it had been under more auspicious circumstances.

“Very tough, no, and very sad for him, honestly,” Nadal told Mats Wilander in his on-court interview afterwards. “He was playing an unbelievable tournament. He’s a very good colleague on the tour. I know how much he is fighting to win a grand slam, but for the moment he was very unlucky. The only thing I am sure is that he is going to win not one, much more than one, so I wish him all the very best and a very fast recovery.”

The Spaniard is the oldest man to reach the final since Bill Tilden, who was 37 when he lost the 1930 final to Henri Cochet. Should he defeat Casper Ruud in Sunday’s final, 17 years after first lifting the Coupe des Mousquetaires as a 19-year-old, he will become the oldest men’s champion in history. This victory, though, was the strangest of birthday gifts for Nadal, who got exactly what he longed for on the day he turned 36, yet in a manner that will bring scant satisfaction to a player who thrives on the adrenaline of competition.

“Even if for me it’s a dream be in the final of Roland Garros, of course that way is not the way that we want it to be,” said Nadal. “It’s not easy and beautiful to talk after what happened. The only thing that I can say is I hope he’s not too bad. Hopefully it’s just the normal thing when you turn your ankle, hopefully nothing is broken. I was with Sascha, looks like they need to keep checking.”

A title run would have brought Zverev not only a first major title, but also the No 1 ranking. Now he seems almost certain to miss Wimbledon, which begins on 27 June, and could face a summer on the sidelines. His frustration will be all the greater for the fact that he was playing the finest tennis he has produced at this or, arguably, any other grand slam tournament. Having dispatched Carlos Alcaraz in the previous round, Zverev immediately picked up where he had left off, landing his booming first serve with unerring regularity and dominating the early baseline exchanges with ball-striking of withering power.

It is often said that the best hope of subduing Nadal on his favourite surface is to overwhelm him with huge serves and heavy groundstrokes. At Roland Garros, where Nadal has been beaten just three times in 111 matches, the evidence for this theory is slender. There was the Spaniard’s fourth-round defeat at the hands of Robin Soderling in 2009, but that came at a time when he was crippled by tendinitis in his knees and struggling to come to terms with the separation of his parents. Being Novak Djokovic, the only other player to get the better of Nadal on the Parisian clay, remains by far the most reliable route to success. Yet, with the Court Philippe Chatrier roof closed due to rain, Zverev breathed fresh life into the received wisdom, his ability to hit through the humid conditions compounding Nadal’s frustration as the balls fluffed up, diminishing the spin and penetration of his groundstrokes.

Nadal needed all his famed tenacity to recover from 4-2 down in the opening set and, when Zverev fended off three set points at 5-4, he was once again forced to go to the well, clawing his way back from 6-2 down in the tiebreak. He was helped on his way by an ace and a wondrous forehand pass, whipped sharply crosscourt from a seemingly hopeless position. But Zverev contributed to his own predicament with a pair of nervy backhand volleys, and when Nadal crushed a forehand pass to seal the set, the former champion looked poised to take control.

Instead, the gruelling nature of the struggle and the relentless quality shown by both men seemed to exact a toll. Nadal was broken four times in a row. Zverev hit three double faults as he tried to serve out the set at 5-3. Four games later, the German’s challenge was over.

If Nadal is to claim a record-extending 22nd major, he will need to find a way past Ruud, the Norwegian eighth seed, who defeated former US Open champion Marin Cilic 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 to reach his first slam final. On what turned out to be a day of multiple twists and turns in Paris, the match was interrupted in the third set by a climate protester who made her way on to the playing surface and, untroubled by security staff, tied herself to the net. A short delay followed, during which both players left the court.

“An environmental activist managed to get onto Philippe Chatrier Court and attached herself to the net with metal wires and glue,” the French Tennis Federation said in a statement. “The young woman, of French nationality, entered the grounds with a valid ticket early in the day. She was then handed over to the police.”

When play resumed, Ruud, who had started passively against the big-hitting Croatian, completed his come-from-behind win, maintaining his increased aggression from the baseline to become the first Norwegian to reach a grand slam final.

“To play Rafa in a Roland Garros final is probably the greatest challenge there is in this sport,” said Ruud, the first Norwegian in history to reach the final of a major.

“I believe he’s 13-0 in the finals, so it might sound like an impossible task. But of course, I will give it a shot like the other 13 people before me have done. It’s obviously going to be tough. We all know what a great champion he is, and how well he plays in the biggest moments and the biggest matches.”

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Mauresmo, the French Open tournament director, banked $15m in prize money over the course of her career, earnings that King’s trailblazing work as founder of the WTA, and tireless campaigning for equality, did much to make possible. As Andy Murray has pointed out, Mauresmo, his former coach, has done much for the women’s game and would not deliberately have set out to tarnish its image. Yet neither that consideration, nor Mauresmo’s apology for comments that she says were taken out of context, could alleviate the prevailing sense of awkwardness. It was, to say the least, an ill-timed convergence of champions.

Happily, the presence of Iga Swiatek alongside King offered a reminder that the spirit of social conscience embodied by the great American has not entirely eluded later generations. Swiatek, who donated $50,000 to a mental health charity last year, and recently questioned why some of her tour contemporaries have stopped wearing ribbons in support of Ukraine, has been consistent in her willingness to speak out on issues beyond the cloistered world of tennis.

When King spoke this week of how she used the sport as a platform to make her voice heard, it was hard not to recall similar comments made recently by the Polish world No 1. “For me, the most important thing is using my voice,” said Swiatek, who is working on projects to support people in Ukraine and Poland. “We’re kind of popular, and we have some influence on the people in our countries, so why not use that?”

It will not harm that ambition that Swiatek is through to her second French Open final in three years after prevailing 6-2, 6-1 over Daria Kasatkina, the 20th seed, to extend her winning streak to 34 successive victories, equalling Serena Williams for the second-best run this century. The contest was every bit as one-sided as the scoreline suggests, Swiatek’s crushing power ensuring Kasatkina never had the chance to bring her variety and tactical wit to bear. As the Russian conceded afterwards, the match was effectively over by the fifth game, by which time Swiatek had shaken off the nervy start that saw an early break quickly cancelled out. 

“Iga was a little bit nervous at the beginning,” said Kasatkina. “I was 2-0 down, then I was able to get the score tied to 2-2, and I think at this point if I could put the gear up, I think that could make the difference. But she was more stable in this moment, so she corrected better than me. Then she turned the match her side.”

The magnitude of the challenge facing Kasatkina quickly became apparent. Pushed off the baseline by the weight of her opponent’s groundstrokes, the onus was on the 25-year-old to take care of her service games. Consistency was key, but unforced errors cost her that first break and it required a double fault from Swiatek – the Pole’s second of the match – to establish a foothold in the proceedings. Kasatkina nonetheless accepted the proffered gift with aplomb, biding her time from the baseline before sweeping away a lovely wrong-footing forehand. When she then fended off a break point in the next game to draw level, it seemed as though we might have a match on our hands. Instead, Kasatkina won just one more game.

“I feel like my game is getting more and more solid,” said Swiatek, who has dropped only one set over the fortnight and will face Coco Gauff in the final. “I can really loosen up when I get [the] advantage and when I have a break, so that’s great. I feel like I’m playing better every match.”

In Gauff, Swiatek will face a player who shares her sense of responsibility to the wider world. The American 18-year-old, who was beaten by eventual champion Barbora Krejcikova in the quarter-finals last year, reached her first major final with a 6-3, 6-1 win against the unseeded Italian Martina Trevisan. She becomes the youngest grand slam finalist since Maria Sharapova, who won Wimbledon aged 17 in 2004.

Trevisan, who at 28 has enjoyed the best fortnight of her career, brought an abundance of passion to the court but had neither the weaponry nor the consistency to trouble Gauff once the teenager had overcome her early nerves. The Italian won their only previous meeting, which came in 2020 on her Roland Garros debut, and here she sought to force the play from the outset. But she frequently overpressed, particularly with her whippy southpaw forehand, and the abiding image of the match was of the 59th-ranked Florentine working her way into a promising position only to send the ball sailing beyond the baseline. 

After a run of five consecutive breaks, the worm turned in the eighth game, when Gauff held for only the second time to lead 5-3. From that point on the American seized control, varying her patterns from the baseline to deny Trevisan rhythm, and as she established a commanding lead the only question that remained was whether she would falter with the end in sight. So much expectation has been heaped on Gauff’s shoulders since her breakthrough run at Wimbledon three years ago, when she came through qualifying as a 15-year-old and defeated five-time champion Venus Williams en route to the fourth round. Would the occasion get to her? 

Any doubts were emphatically answered as Gauff conjured three very different winners – a beautifully crafted lob volley, a deft drop shot and an untouchable forehand – before, fittingly, Trevisan sent one final ball long. Perhaps even more impressive than Gauff’s composure down the stretch was the message she scrawled on a TV camera afterwards. “Peace,” wrote the teenager. “End gun violence.” 

It was, as she explained afterwards, a reference not only to last month’s attack on a school in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed by a lone gunman, but also to the fatal shooting of four people in an Oklahoma hospital on Wednesday. 

“For me, it’s important, just as a person in the world, regardless of [being a tennis player or not,” said Gauff. “I think for me it was just especially important just being in Europe and being where I know people globally around the world are for sure watching.

“Especially in America it’s a problem that’s, frankly, been happening over some years, but obviously now it’s getting more attention. But for me it’s been an issue for years.

“For me, it’s kind of close to home. I had some friends that were a part of the Parkland shooting. I remember watching that whole experience pretty much firsthand, seeing and having friends go through that whole experience. Luckily they were able to make it out of it. I just think it’s crazy, I think I was maybe 14 or 13 when that happened, and still nothing has changed.

“That was just a message for the people back at home to watch, and for people who are all around the world to watch. Hopefully it gets into the heads of people in office to hopefully change things.”

Whatever happens in Saturday’s final, King’s legacy will be in good hands. 

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Eight years have passed since Marin Cilic reached the zenith of his career with victory at the US Open, and the Croatian last featured at the business end of a major in 2018. He is no longer in the bloom of youth but, at 33 going on 25, he remains as fit as a fiddle. and is enjoying an unexpected Indian summer at Roland Garros.

With a 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (10-2) victory over seventh seed Andrey Rublev, the highest-ranked player remaining in the lower half of the draw, Cilic completed a full house of grand slam semi-finals. In the process, he claimed a little slice of tennis history, becoming the only active player outside the big four of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy Murray to make the semi-finals or better at all four slams.

“Absolutely fantastic achievement for me,” said the 20th-seeded Cilic, who also led Croatia to the Davis Cup title four years ago. “These guys have been [at] the top of the game for so many years. Looking at my own career, I had some obviously huge successes and won so many things. But also comparing to the top guys, I was not as consistent, you know. Had three, four seasons that were incredibly good, incredibly consistent, but I was a little bit in and out. 

“I’m just trying to use my opportunities as much as I can during my career every day, every match, to give my best and to [make sure] when I go out of the game that I’m absolutely proud.”

It is a knack that Rublev, who has now lost all five of the slam quarter-finals he has contested, has yet to acquire. There can be no doubting the Russian’s heart and endeavour. Yet for all the battering-ram potency of his service and loose-limbed forehand, the 24-year-old finished the contest with only 35 winners – less than half Cilic’s 88. There is also a question mark over whether he has the ruthlessness required at this rarefied level. Twice in the deciding set he intervened to overrule calls in Cilic’s favour and, while his sportsmanship was commendable, not every rival would be so generous at such a juncture. 

It will come as scant consolation to Rublev that, after failing to win a set in his previous last-eight appearances in New York, Paris and Melbourne, he is getting closer. Afterwards, he bemoaned his inability to roll with the emotional and psychological pressures of the situation. 

“Mental, everything [is] mental,” said Rublev. “I couldn’t manage. I couldn’t manage the emotions the previous times. And now it was the closest ever time that I was able to go through to be in semis. Again, the same thing, I didn’t manage the emotions. I don’t know if I did it better compared to other matches. At least I did a better score and I was closer than in other matches, but still, it is the same thing.”

For all his self-flagellation, Rublev fought back doggedly to build a lead after losing the opening set, and saved a match point on his serve in the 10th game of the decider. But it was Cilic’s heavy artillery that told in the end, the 20th seed running away with the final nine points of the first match tiebreak contested at a slam since the format was standardised across the four competitions in March. A fourth major final seems well within the grasp of the evergreen Croatian.

“Feeling good,” said Cilic breezily. “I was talking with my doctor at the end of last year and he said, ‘Your body’s like 25.’ Don’t tell my wife I’m saying this, [but] I might be playing another 10 years.”

Cilic will face Casper Ruud in the last four after the Norwegian eighth seed came through 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 against the Danish teenager Holger Rune. In the first all-Scandinavian grand slam quarter-final in history, it was Ruud who made the early running, racing to a 5-0 lead before Rune found his range to level the match. Ruud saw an early break cancelled out in the third set, but seized control of the tiebreak and the match to reach his first major semi-final. 

“These are the matches you dream about playing, and hopefully of course even the final, if it’s possible,” said Ruud, who shook his head in disapproval after Rune offered a perfunctory handshake at the end. “I have to be really focused and bring my A game in the semi-final because Marin has played great all week and it’s going to be another tough match.”

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After a bold start, Jessica Pegula, the 11th-seed and highest-ranked player remaining in the draw other than the world No 1 herself, never looked likely to alter that. Pegula was brushed aside 6-3, 6-2 with typical efficiency as Swiatek, despite the odd moment of exasperation, claimed her 33rd win in a row to reach the semi-finals.

When it came to signing a TV camera, though, Swiatek paused at length, bemused and bereft of inspiration. We’ve all been there, struggling to find the words as a colleague awaits a quick, witty addition to a workmate’s birthday card. The difference in Swiatek’s case was that the someone in question was a global TV audience, which presumably ratchets up the pressure a notch or two. 

“Oh my God, this is hard,” exclaimed Swiatek.  

How dearly Pegula would have loved to elicit such a response from the former champion. The American has been in fine form of late, reaching the biggest final of her career in Madrid and the last four of the Miami Open, and this was her second successive grand slam quarter-final. But the match began to run away from her in the seventh game after Swiatek broke in controversial fashion, angling away a forehand on the slide off a ball that bounced twice. 

“These moments are pretty tricky, because it’s all on the umpire,” said Swiatek. “But if it was two bounces then I’m sorry, I was just too focused to win the point.”

As Pegula was quick to point outwards, there was no doubt the decision was incorrect, a fact that became clear when a replay was shown at the end of the set.

“I hit a really good dropshot and it was against the wind, and I was like, ‘There’s no freaking way she got that.’ I was, like, ‘Seriously?’ But it wasn’t like I didn’t think she got it. I was just, like, ‘Jesus, is she that fast?’ Like, I hit that perfect. I looked at the chair [umpire], and he was like, you know, he didn’t call it. You can’t say anything.

“The problem is, once they make their decision you can’t go back and change it.  Because it was the end of the set, I think, they showed the replay on the board and I kind of looked at him, and I was like, ‘It was a double bounce.’ And he was like, ‘Really? I didn’t see that.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, well, they just showed the replay. It was a double bounce.’ But, you know, what are you going to do?”

It will be Daria Kasatkina’s turn to ask that question next after the 20th-seeded Russian defeated her compatriot Veronika Kudermetova 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) to reach her first grand slam semi-final. 

“Everything happens for the first time and I’m really happy to be in the semis,” said Kasatkina, a former world No 10, who defeated Swiatek on the grass courts of Eastbourne last year but has won just 11 games against her in their three hard-court meetings this year. 

“She’s good on a hard court, she’s good on, so it doesn’t matter,” said Kasatkina. “I think for me it’s better to face her on clay. Also, I mean, I have now a good run on clay, so I feel good here.”

Swiatek, the champion two years ago, will no doubt feel the same. She is through to her third major semi-final, having reached the same stage of the Australian Open in January, and her confidence is palpable.

“I kind of feel like the sky’s the limit for me, so I feel more free right now, I feel like I’ve proven myself,” she said. “A lot has changed in my mind and for sure I also realise that I can actually be No 1 and really cope with it properly.”

The same cannot be said for TV cameras. After much deliberation, Swiatek eventually scrawled the message, “Getting old but still fresh,” a nod to the fact that she celebrated her birthday on Tuesday. She then added the hashtag “22” before exclaiming, “No, wait,” and altering it to read “21” – her actual age now.

 “It happens,” she laughed, “It’s so much already, the numbers are big.” 

At 33 wins and counting, the third best winning run in the women’s game this century, they certainly are.

On a more serious note, Swiatek expressed disappointment over comments made by tournament director Amélie Mauresmo, who suggested that the decision to feature only one women’s match in the 10 available night session slots was down to the relative lack of appeal of the women’s game.

“In this era that we are in right now, I don’t feel bad or unfair saying that right now you have more attraction, more attractivity [in] general, for the men’s matches,” said Mauresmo, a former world No 1 and Wimbledon champion.

“It was tough for more than one night to find, as you say, the match of the day.”

Alizé Cornet defeated Jelena Ostapenko, the 13th seed and former champion, in ihe only women’s night match of the fortnight.

“It is a little bit disappointing and surprising, because she was also in the WTA,” said Swiatek. “From my point of view, for every player it’s more convenient to play at normal hour, but for sure I want to entertain and I also want to show my best tennis in every match. 

“So I think it’s kind of the personal opinion of every person if they like men’s tennis or women’s tennis more, or if they like them equally. But I think women’s tennis has a lot of advantages. Some may say that it’s unpredictable and girls are not consistent. But on the other hand, it may also be something that is really appealing, and it may really attract more people. So it depends on the personal views of some people.”

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It was unforgettable that two gladiators of the sport were forced to join combat at just after 9pm on a cold Parisian night. Unforgettable that the French Tennis Federation were so desperate to line their pockets that the demands of television took precedence over the welfare of two of the greatest players in history. 

It was unforgettable how magnificently Nadal and his perennial rival Novak Djokovic nevertheless rose to the occasion, mesmerising us with their extraordinary ball-striking, consistency and athleticism for four hours and 12 minutes in a contest of extraordinary unpredictability and countless momentum shifts. Unforgettable that the match finished just after 1.15am, by which time the Paris Metro had stopped, and unthinkable that the organisers could not have foreseen such a scenario after last year’s titanic semi-final between the pair. 

Above all, it was unforgettable how Nadal, in conditions that favoured his opponent, with an epic last-16 win over Felix Auger-Aliassime still in his legs, and barely a fortnight after limping out of the Italian Open following the latest flare-up of his chronic foot injury, summoned the strength of mind, body and will to prevail 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4) in a match that straddled the gap between May and June. Three days shy of his 36th birthday, the Spaniard remains a man for all seasons and all hours.

Nadal had suggested beforehand that this could be his last tilt at Roland Garros. After this, it is difficult to imagine he will not be back. Either way, his desire to play in the relative warmth of the day, when his heavy topspin rears up off the clay most violently, fell on deaf ears. Evidently 13 titles do not speak as loudly as the millions raked in from Amazon Prime for the right to screen night sessions. 

Nadal’s extraordinary success has, however, earned him a place in the affections of the French public. Gone are the days when they seemed to resent him for consistently blocking Roger Federer’s path to the title, and their raucously partisan support drove Nadal on as he fought back from 5-2 down in the fourth set, saving two set points in the process. The impassioned chants of “Ra-fa! Ra-fa!” that pierced the night air before the players even arrived on Court Philippe Chatrier became increasingly urgent as the night wore on, reaching a crescendo in the fourth-set tiebreak as the Spaniard closed in on his 110th victory in 113 outings in Paris. It was an electric atmosphere, and Nadal was visibly moved as he spoke with Marion Bartoli on court afterwards.

“Merci, merci, merci and merci, tout le monde,” he said, fighting back tears as applause rained down from the stands. 

“Have been a very, very tough match. Novak is one of the best players in history without a doubt, so always to play against him is an amazing challenge, all the history that we have together. Today was another one. To win against Novak there is only one way: to play at your best [from] the first point till the last. It has been one of these magic nights for me, [an] unexpected level, but I am super happy.”

What Djokovic would give for such support. Instead, he was frequently forced to wait until the clamour died down before serving, not least during the fervid fourth-set denouement. Yet how richly the Serb, who came into the match on a nine-match winning streak following his victory in Rome, contributed to the contest. His signature stubbornness was no less inspiring than his venomous ball-striking off the forehand as he recovered from a set and a break down to put the contest on a knife edge. Crestfallen afterwards, he was nonetheless generous in his praise for his arch-rival.

“He was a better player in important moments,” said Djokovic. “I was gaining momentum as I was coming back in the second set, managed to win the second set, and I thought, ‘OK, I’m back in the game.’ But then he had another two, three fantastic games at the beginning of the third. He was just able to take his tennis to another level in those moments, particularly at the beginning of all the sets, except the fourth. 

“I had my chances. You know, I had my chances in the fourth. Served for the set, couple of set points. Just one or two shots could have taken me into a fifth. Then it’s really anybody’s match. But again, he showed why he’s a great champion, staying there mentally tough and finishing the match the way he did.”

The Parisian crowd that filed into Roland Garros on a chilly springtime night came to watch a display of performance art, a masterpiece to stand alongside the titanic third set of last year’s semi-final. After a set and a half, it seemed more likely they would witness an execution. 

This was the third year in a row that the pair had met at Roland Garros, and Nadal has developed a useful habit of starting their meetings strongly. The Spaniard won the opening set 6-0 on the way to an emphatic victory over Djokovic in the 2020 final, and led 5-0 in the opening set 12 months ago. The pattern continued here as Nadal, perhaps catching his opponent cold with his willingness to go down the line off both wings earlier and more often than usual, pocketed nine of the first 11 games. 

For all Nadal’s scoreboard dominance, however, it was desperately close. The opening game alone took 10 minutes, both men starting at full throttle as they exchanged groundstrokes of breath-taking power and precision. Djokovic eventually blinked first, clipping the net as he attempted to tame a return loaded with topspin, but the tone was set. It took almost half an hour just to complete the first four games. At this point, it was still warm enough for the Spaniard’s strokes to climb high above shoulder level, with all the challenges of movement and timing that entails. It was an uphill struggle for Djokovic, quite literally.   

With his run of 22 consecutive sets broken and down a double break, Djokovic roused himself. Nadal missed a drop shot to drop serve for the first time. Djokovic smiled quietly to himself. Did the defending champion know something we didn’t? On a night when little seemed to go as expected, it appeared so. There was another sly grin as he slotted away a high backhand volley at the start of the next game, which he went on to seal with a wonderful, acutely angled forehand. 

Then came the tour de force, a gruelling 19-minute game on Nadal’s serve that felt like a match in itself. It began with changes of pace, spin and angle from Djokovic. It blossomed into a brilliant display of defiance from Nadal as he fought off the second of two break points from 15-40 with an ace. Then the fun began in earnest. Djokovic launched himself into a series of laser-like forehands. Nadal conjured a miraculous hooked pass off a ball that was almost behind him. Bucketloads of break points and game points came and went. Along the way, there was an almost comically poor exchange of drop shots. Finally, Nadal sent a final despairing backhand wide. Djokovic, it seemed, was on his way.

Having failed to secure a two-set lead that looked his for the taking, and with the crushing disappointment of last year’s defeat against the same opponent still painfully fresh, it seemed inevitable Nadal would suffer a letdown. Not a bit of it. As the Mallorcan returned from a comfort break rejuvenated, Djokovic’s level dropped. Now it was Nadal’s turn to forge ahead again. 

Forty-one minutes later, what had seemed a likely victory for Djokovic looked for all the world like a nailed-on win for Nadal. Again, though, the pendulum swung. Djokovic seized an early break in the fourth, and held two sets points on serve at 5-3 to take the match into a decider. Nadal saved both and then hammered a forehand winner to reclaim the break. 

A scintillating start to the tiebreak, punctuated by a series of unanswerable forehands and some absurdly sprightly footwork, laid the foundations for an unassailable lead before Nadal speared a final backhand winner and turned gleefully to his box. A 29th victory in 60 meetings with Djokovic was secured, and along with it the knowledge that his place at the top of the grand slam leaderboard, 21 majors to the Serb’s 20, remains secure for now. Not that he appears to be keeping count on either score.

“This is one more episode,” said Nadal. “That’s it. We played, as I said before, in the most important events, in the most important matches for a lot of years, and it’s always special to play against each other.

“Of course, there is always a conversation about the player who will finish with more slams, or who is the best in history, but from my perspective it doesn’t matter that much. We achieved our dreams.”

For now, the dream of a 14th title remains very much alive. 

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“In order for the match to be finished, you have to win three sets,” came the rueful reply “Two sets doesn’t really mean anything.”

Twelve months on, Tsitsipas, 23, has learned that reputation means even less. Bundled out of the tournament 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 by Holger Rune, the Danish teenager who stunned Denis Shapovalov in the opening round, the Greek was inconsolable as he contemplated his failure to make the required tactical adjustments in time to avoid defeat.

“I was trying to return from really far back on his serves. He serves good, but he’s not John Isner,” said Tsitsipas, the fourth seed, in an emotionally charged press conference. 

“Psychologically, that really drowned me. Once I missed a few or wasn’t making it deep enough, he kind of found that pattern and was reading it really well, executing some, being able to bring out some good shots and feeling comfortable.

“I wasn’t really applying a lot of pressure, it was ridiculous at a point. And again I was stubborn, I was stubborn to change it, I didn’t want to change because it has helped me before, it has brought good results. But again, like I need to adjust way quicker, it’s too late for this stuff.”

Therein lies the frustration for Tsitsipas, who is at a point in his career when his greater experience over five sets ought to give him the edge over the likes of Rune, a 19-year-old making his Roland Garros debut who had never previously won a match at a major. The young Dane nonetheless deserves huge credit for his performance. He pushed Tsitsipas off the baseline with his power and depth off the ground, leavened the mix with some wonderfully executed drop shots, and held firm on serve in the key moments, not least when he fended off three break points as he served for the match after spurning an opportunity to seal victory at 5-2.

“When I was up 5-2, I thought that I had a big lead, so I kind of relaxed, maybe too much,” said Rune, who defeated Alexander Zverev en route to his first ATP title in Munich last month. “He was playing very aggressively and very freely, because he was obviously behind two sets to one and with two breaks, so he had at that moment nothing to lose. He just played some great shots. 

“Then he played a great service game, and then I went out at 5-4 really nervous, I would say, and a bit stressed, but I think I managed very good. Obviously started with a double fault. Was not how I wanted to. But, you know, then I came back and really tried to play more aggressive, because he was playing super close to the line, taking every ball as it bounced almost, and was really taking time away. I think at the end I showed some good shots and some very good tennis at the tight moments.”

The longform version of the game should nevertheless allow the elite to work things out, to overcome setbacks, to find a way. Tsitsipas was unable to turn the tide, as Djokovic did against him a year ago, and that will hurt. The Greek knows as well as anyone that he is no longer one of the game’s rising stars, but a former grand slam finalist and an established presence in the world’s top five. He is there to be shot at, a prize scalp for the next wave of young hopefuls aiming to upset the status quo at the top of the men’s game. Yet in recent months, he has been beaten by the 21-year-old American Jenson Brooksby in Indian Wells and Carlos Alcaraz, 19, in Miami and Barcelona. The danger of falling through the gap between the big three and the Next Gen is clear, yet he remains sanguine. 

“I’m not worried,” said the 23-year-old. “I know my tennis, I know my game. These kids are going to want to beat me badly, because obviously they are chasing. I’m chasing too, but I’m at a different kind of position than they are. I’m hungry to beat them too. Now that they have beaten me, I want payback.”

Also in the mood for payback was Marin Cilic, the former US Open champion, who swept aside Daniil Medvedev 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 to avenge a run of three straights losses to the Russian second seed. An irresistible display of attacking tennis from Cilic saw him seal victory in a brisk one hour and 45 minutes as Medvedev, one of the game’s most effective returners, failed to create a single break point and was broken five times.

With Tsitsipas and Medvedev out, Andrey Rublev assumes the mantle of favourite in the bottom half of the draw. The Russian seventh seed, who will face Cilic next, advanced to the last eight for the second time in his career after Italy’s Jannik Sinner was forced to retire with a knee injury while trailing 1-6, 6-4, 2-0. 

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But Swiatek has not compiled one of the longest winning streaks since the turn of the century without being able to take charge of her own destiny, and it is a measure of the self-belief she possesses these days that she gestured to her team to pipe down as she recovered from the loss of the opening set to reach the quarter-finals 6-7 (5-7), 6-0, 6-2.

“For sure, these matches are emotional for everybody because they are tight and not easy,” said Swiatek, explaining that her exuberant support team was simply trying to motivate her. “It wasn’t easy to find solutions and to find other tactics and do something differently, because I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong.”

That much was evident in the increasingly agitated gesticulations she directed towards her box as a 5-2 first-set lead slowly evaporated in the face of some inspired play from the 74th-ranked Zheng. With her big serve and ferocious topspin forehand, the powerful 19-year-old caused Swiatek all manner of problems, carrying the fight to the world No 1 as she fended off five set points and clawed her way back from 5-2 down in the tiebreak to claim the opener. 

For Swiatek, who had not lost a set in over a month, it was all a little too reminiscent of the previous round, where she relinquished a 4-1 second-set lead against Danka Kovinic. At the end of the tiebreak she left the court clutching a notebook, yet the emphatic comeback that followed apparently owed more to Dua Lipa than tactical considerations.

“In the first set I [had] technical stuff that I wanted to change, like staying lower in my legs and not pushing the ball but swinging like I would do normally,” said Swiatek. “She was playing really fast balls, and it wasn’t easy to loosen up, because I felt a little bit tense.  

“So in the second set I just kind of wanted to focus more and not really talk to the box that much. And honestly, I speeded up a little bit my forehand. Maybe that was the solution. But I felt like my mind was a little bit more clear. I was kind of singing songs. I realised that in the first set, when I was really focusing on that technical stuff, it didn’t really work because I got more and more tense. 

“I was singing in my mind, basically. It’s not the first time. I’m always singing something, but I changed the song.”

For Zheng, on the other hand, harmony rapidly turned to dissonance. Swiatek stormed into a 3-0 lead. Struggling with an upper thigh injury, Zheng took a medical timeout and returned with her leg heavily strapped. But the Pole was revitalised, the anxieties of the first set consigned firmly to the past as she stepped inside the baseline, took the ball early and worked the angles. It did not help that Zheng, as she later explained, was suffering from debilitating menstrual cramps.

“In the first set I was just trying to play my tennis and I didn’t feel the pain in my stomach,” said Zheng. “So I was able to really get there and to say, ‘Come on,’ to have a good attitude. 

“After, when the match [went on], I just had too pain in my stomach. I wanted to fight, I really, really wanted to fight, but I just don’t have power and it was really tough. I couldn’t show my tennis today in the second and third set, even in the first set, I’m really not happy with my performance.

“It’s just girls’ things, you know. The first day is always so tough and then, you know, I have to do sport. I always have so much pain in the first day.”

Zheng’s candour recalled Swiatek’s openness at last year’s WTA Finals, where she revealed after a tearful defeat to Maria Sakkari that she had been suffering from premenstrual syndrome. Mature, articulate and richly talented, Zheng’s emergence has been one of the stories of the tournament.

As for Swiatek, the unbeaten run continues. She has now won 32 matches in a row, equalling Justine Henin for the third-longest winning streak this century. She will now need to get past Jessica Pegula, the 11th-seeded American, to give herself a chance of drawing level with Serena Williams in second place. Pegula defeated Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. 

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Maybe it was the unseasonably chilly weather, maybe it was the emotional hangover from watching his beloved Real Madrid win the Champions League the previous evening, but Nadal had not been himself. Opportunities were spurned, errors committed, the first set dropped. Now the Spaniard had levelled proceedings and held a break point to move ahead for the first time.

Auger-Aliassime, whose brilliant attacking play had so compounded Nadal’s initial discomfort, fired a first serve wide to Nadal’s forehand. The response was short, invitingly so, and the 21-year-old thumped a backhand approach shot into the opposite corner. His sharpness at the net had already reaped dividends and, as Nadal threw up a high defensive lob, the Canadian’s attacking instincts seemed certain to prevail again. 

Auger-Aliassime clumped an overhead into the space vacated by Nadal, whose latest attempt to ward off a chronic foot injury was receiving its sternest test of the fortnight. Somehow, the 13-time champion arrived in time to scrape back a weak reply. Again, the Canadian ninth seed blasted the ball into the open court; again, Nadal sprinted off in pursuit. Auger-Aliassime had already seen off two break points in the game and now, with the court at his mercy, his recovery from 0-40 looked a formality. But Nadal’s powers of retrieval had him spooked. Trying to bring down the guillotine, he overpressed his smash and the ball sailed long. Cue a quiet clench of the fist from Nadal and smiles of relief in his support box. Finally, he was in front. Another defining passage in his storied career had been written.

Except, it hadn’t. 

It has been said that to achieve great things, one must learn to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Never has Auger-Aliassime looked more so. His service is a formidable weapon, and it took Nadal a set and a half to find his range on the return. Once he did, Auger-Aliassime was rarely at ease again, yet it didn’t matter. Time and again, the world No 9 ceded ground early in his service games only to come roaring back. It was a hugely impressive display, one brimming with flair and variety, and it augurs well for the 21-year-old that, on the surface where he is at his least effective, he became only the third man in 18 years to push Nadal to a fifth set at Roland Garros. 

“In the end, the sport is normally very simple,” said Nadal, who was watched from the front row of the president’s box by his uncle and former coach Toni Nadal, now the coach of Auger-Aliassime. “When you play better you have better chances; if you play worse, then you have of course less chances, no? In that case, when I played well, I won the match. When I played not that well, I had a lot of troubles, no? First set I didn’t play well, so I lost. And then, after the first set and a half, I started to play much better, in my opinion, much more aggressive. 

“I played a good end of the second set and, I think, a very good third set. Then I made a super mistake at the beginning of the fourth, when the situation already changed and I was in control of the match, and then I suffered. But the most important thing is that I played a good fifth set, and especially the last three, four games I played with the right dimensions, so very happy for that.”

Perhaps the biggest compliment you can pay Auger-Aliassime is that he forced Nadal to redefine the defining moment. The quality, resilience and self-belief he showed to capitalise on a slew of forehand errors from the Spaniard at the start of the fourth set obliged Nadal to win the match all over again. To do so, Nadal went to a place where few can follow. 

From 3-3 in the decider, Nadal lost only three more points, his court coverage and ball-striking of a quality that momentarily made you forget he is managing a chronic foot injury and preparing to celebrate his 36th birthday in four days’ time. Instead, to Auger-Aliassime’s despair, there came only reminders of his enduring quality. A running forehand pass set up a break point. A muscular sprint into the forecourt saw him convert it, Nadal tucking an irretrievable ball down the line for a winner. He sealed victory with a final foray to the net, a tactic that served him well down the stretch, as a cat-and-mouse exchange of angles ended with one last forehand winner into the open court. 

“He raised his level when he needed to,” reflected Auger-Aliassime, whose . “He was serving well in the fifth set, playing well behind the serve, being very aggressive, and I think he took it even higher, one step further, from 4-3. Honestly, I didn’t play a bad game. I did what I had to do. He was dictating, aggressive when he needed to be, and also defending really well.”

Now comes another meeting with Djokovic, against whom Nadal will need all those qualities and more. The world No 1 passed a potentially tricky test against Diego Schwartzman with flying colours, brushing aside the Argentinian 15th seed 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 to keep his title defence on course. 

“Nadal, obviously, [was a] well-anticipated match when the draw came out for a lot of people,” said Djokovic, who has yet to drop a set this year. “I’m glad that I didn’t spend too much time on the court myself up to quarter-finals, knowing that playing him in Roland Garros is always a physical battle, along with everything else. It’s a huge challenge, and probably the biggest one that you can have here in Roland Garros. I’m ready for it.”

Carlos Alcaraz booked a last-eight appointment with Alexander Zverev, battling past Russia’s Karen Khachanov 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 to reach his second grand slam quarter-final.

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