When a player with the brisk gait of Stefanos Tsitsipas hits his stride, trouble inevitably follows. The Greek barely put a foot wrong against Pablo Carreño Busta, the 12th seed, advancing to the quarter-finals of the French Open with a 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 victory.
Tsitsipas, the fifth seed, now stands within one win of a third successive grand slam semi-final, although to get there he will have to navigate a route past born-again dirtballer Daniil Medvedev, who came through against Cristian Garin of Chile in straight sets.
The evidence suggests that Medvedev’s blossoming love affair with the Parisian clay, where he had never won a match before this week, will be stretched to breaking point. Tsitsipas, whose elegant, instinctive play has illuminated the lower half of the draw, has acquired an appetite for the staccato rhythms of grand slam tennis that shows no sign of being sated just yet.
“I think I’ve played some of my best tennis when I don’t think much on the court, when everything is being done automatically, on autopilot,” said Tsitsipas. “I felt also my performance was at the top. So less thinking, more action.
“In grand slams, it’s all about the endurance and being able to show up and do your job once every two days, and do it well. It’s demanding; it takes a lot of attention, a lot of effort. I’ve grown into loving that process and wanting to repeat that.”
Having survived the heavy artillery of John Isner two nights earlier, Tsitsipas found himself under more conventional clay-court scrutiny against Carreño Busta. He proved more than equal to the task, capitalising on a strangely passive start by the Spaniard to establish a momentum he rarely looked likely to relinquish.
Twice a quarter-finalist at Roland Garros, Carreño Busta is a solid baseliner with few weaknesses but no overwhelming threats. Two of his five career titles have come on clay, most recently at the Andalucia Open two months ago, but he has posted his best results on hard courts, where a more enterprising approach has twice carried him to the the US Open semi-finals. On clay, however, Carreño Busta relies on the traditional virtues of patience, solidity and fleetness of foot.
Such fare is meat and drink to Tsitsipas, who perhaps looks more naturally at home at Roland Garros than any player since Rafael Nadal. Raised on the red dirt courts of the Tennis Club Glyfada near Athens, where his father Apostolos was a coach, the Greek was a semi-finalist last year and claimed his first Masters 1000 title two months ago in Monte Carlo. His star is rising, and for much of the match Carreño Busta was dazzled.
There is something of the executioner’s touch in the way Tsitsipas approaches his work. Where most players seek to construct points on clay in the manner of a chess grandmaster, the Greek seems to regard rallies not so much as a puzzle to be solved as an opportunity to select his weapon of choice. An elegantly arced groundstroke into the corner here, a flighted drop shot or lob volley there; Tsitsipas has countless ways to kill you. He was two sets to the good before Carreño Busta responded with an early break in the third. Predictably, the danger was quickly snuffed out.
Intriguingly, Tsitsipas has won just once in seven attempts against Medevev, a dismal sequence of results that includes a three-set defeat on the clay courts of Monte Carlo two years ago. It is a record from which the Russian, who avenged his defeat to Garin at the Madrid Masters last month with a 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 victory, should draw considerable confidence when the pair meet in two days’ time.
“He serves extremely well,” said Tsitsipas. “This is going to be something that I will have to face. Of course, myself playing well, I feel like I don’t have to think about who I’m facing or not. I just have to play my game. Let the rest be witnessed.”
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina reached the last eight for the first time at a slam with a 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 victory against Federico Delbonis of Argentina. The unseeded Spaniard will play Alexander Zverev for a place in the last four after the German beat Kei Nishikori 6-4, 6-1, 6-1.
“I played incredible, but the tournament is not over,” said Zverev, the sixth seed. “Hopefully, I have three more matches left and we will see how they go. I feel if I play my best tennis I am difficult to beat.”