The French Open 2018 men’s semi-finals are here, so those two questions will get their answers soon enough.
Day 13 tennis schedule:
Marco Cecchinato vs. Dominic Thiem
Rafael Nadal vs. Juan Martin del Potro
Who is Marco Cecchinato? He’s a 25-year-old tennis player from Italy who began the year by losing to 319th ranked Bradley Mousley in the Australian Open qualifiers. Saying that this is the biggest achievement in his life is an understatement. This what he said after beating Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7jxPviyoRQ
“I think it’s changed my life,”
“So after Roland Garros, I need some rest and to realize the moment, and we will see my life.”
Yeah, right. Marco Cecchinato had never won a Grand Slam match before the start of the French Open. His presence at this year’s event could’ve been short-lived as well. Cecchinato battled back from two sets down in the first round to defeat Romanian Marius Copil, winning the fifth set 10-8. After that, he dispatched 11th seed Pablo Carreno Busta, 9th seed David Goffin and former World No.1 Novak Djokovic. Marco is a clay-court specialist (sort of). He has never won an ATP tour tie on another surface. He has already won double the number of matches on the ATP tour in 2018 than in every other year of his career combined.
His semi-final opponent Dominic Thiem is well aware of the situatuon:
“He never won a match at a slam, and now he’s in the semi-finals. So everything is going easy for him. He can play completely free.”
24-year-old Austrian Dominic Thiem is currently ranked No.9. He has a 29-8 record in 2018. Twenty of those wins have come on clay. Thiem recently defeated Rafael Nadal in Madrid and eliminated Nishikori and Zverev on his way to this semi-final. He’s been one of the hottest players on tour and is a huge favorite to reach his first Roland Garros final after failing to do so in his previous two semi-final attempts.
In the second match today, Rafael Nadal plays probably the only tennis player who can give him a run for his money on clay at the moment – Juan Martin del Potro. These two have met 14 times before, with del Potro coming out on top four times. They’ve met only twice on clay. Nadal won both times, the second of them being a walkover. Their last clash was during the 2017 US Open. Nadal won 3-1.
Rafael Nadal is currently World’s No.1 and has a 23-2 win-loss record in 2018, including three titles. Juan Martin del Potro is ranked No.6, has an equal amount of victories (23), but six losses. He’s won two trophies. Rafa is going for his 11th French Open title and hasn’t been challenged up to this point, although he did fail to break Bjorn Borg’s record for consecutive sets won at Roland Garros by losing the first one to Diego Schwartzmann in the quarter-finals. Del Porto defeated clay court specialist Albert Ramos, John Isner and Marin Cilic on his way to this semi-final. It will definitely be one of the most intriguing matches of the year