Novak Djokovic overcame a slow start at the French Open yesterday to reach his 16th consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final by beating Philipp Kohlschreiber 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
After losing a set for the first time in the tournament, Djokovic became more aggressive, punctuating winners with lots of fist-pumping as he pulled away.
He repeatedly escaped trouble with his serve, erasing 11 of the 13 break points he faced.
Photo: Reuters
Djokovic next plays 35-year-old Tommy Haas, who became the oldest French Open men’s quarter-finalist since 1971 by beating Mikhail Youzhny 6-1, 6-1, 6-3.
Haas is also the oldest man to reach the quarters at any major event since Andre Agassi at the 2005 US Open.
Victoria Azarenka swept the final nine games and advanced to the women’s quarter-finals by beating 2010 champion Francesca Schiavone 6-3, 6-0. Azarenka next plays Maria Kirilenko, who reached her first French Open quarter-final by ending the surprising run of 67th-ranked Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US 7-5, 6-4.
Photo: Reuters
Roland Garros is the only major tournament Djokovic has yet to win and with three more victories he would become the eighth man to complete a career Grand Slam. The six-time major champion has said the French Open is his most important tournament this year.
Even so, Djokovic was subdued at the start of the match, his first since he learned that his first coach, Jelena Gencic, had died in Belgrade at the age of 76. She mentored him for about five years, starting when Djokovic was six.
With the victory, Djokovic avenged a straight-sets loss to Kohlschreiber in the third round at Roland Garros in 2009. The world No. 1 is seeking to become the first man since Jim Courier in 1992 to win the Australian Open and French Open in the same year.
Photo: Reuters
Djokovic’s streak of consecutive major quarter-finals is the third longest among men in the Open era.
Haas became a first-time Roland Garros quarter-finalist in his 12th appearance at the tournament, a record for such a breakthrough. He is the first German man to reach the final eight since Michael Stich and Bernd Karbacher in 1996, and he is the oldest men’s quarter-finalist at Roland Garros since 39-year-old Istvan Gulyas in 1971.
“These are cool stats sometimes to hear,” said Haas, who is mounting a comeback from injuries that sidelined him for more than a year. “I feel like I’m riding a wave that I hope to continue as long as I can. I’m going out there and I try to improve my game as much as I can, and to be in this situation is spectacular.”
Seeded 12, Haas needed 13 match points to beat John Isner in a third-round marathon, but his victory over Youzhny took less than 90 minutes. By the second set, Youzhny was so frustrated he demolished his racket by banging it nine times against his changeover chair.
“Bad luck for that racket,” Youzhny said.
Haas served well and dominated with his returns, winning 25 of 41 points on Youzhny’s first serve and breaking eight times.
Ranked No. 2 when he was 24, Haas is now the oldest player in the top 100. He was sidelined from February 2010 to April 2011 because of hip and shoulder injuries, but he is 25-9 this year.
“Who would have thought two years ago I’d be in this position today?” Haas said. “I wouldn’t have thought that way. Almost no way, but you’ve got to keep believing and have the right people around you being positive, helping you to maybe still achieve great things.”
The women began play in weather so cool that both dressed in long sleeves and Azarenka wore leggings under her skirt. From the baseline the two traded strokes and grunts.
There were four consecutive service breaks before Azarenka took the lead for good, holding to make it 4-3. The superior pace and depth of her shots began to wear on the unseeded Schiavone and Azarenka took charge by winning 11 of 12 points late in the first set.
The Belarussian broke serve seven times and committed only 14 unforced errors.
“It was definitely a very good challenge for me to play against Francesca, especially knowing how well she’s done here in the past,” Azarenka said. “I’m glad with the way I played today.”
The third seed improved to 26-2 this year. She has won the Australian Open in each of the past two years and Roland Garros is the only major tournament where she has yet to reach the semi-finals.
Twelth seed Kirilenko overcame a 4-1 deficit against Mattek-Sands, who stunned 2011 French Open champion Li Na of China in the second round.
Leading 5-4, Mattek-Sands asked for medical attention and from there Kirilenko won four games in a row.
Kirilenko, who is engaged to two-time National Hockey League Most Valuable Player Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, also was visited by a trainer, getting a massage on her right shoulder in the second set.
Chasing a shot on Sunday, Roger Federer caught his right shoe in the French Open’s red clay, twisting his foot awkwardly and tumbling to the ground.
Soon enough, he was in a real rut, in danger of his earliest exit from a Grand Slam tournament in nine years.
Federer regrouped and restored order eventually, coming back from a two-sets-to-one deficit to beat 15th seed Gilles Simon of France 6-1, 4-6, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the fourth round of the men’s singles to reach his 36th consecutive major quarter-final.
“I didn’t hurt myself or anything, but maybe I did lose that touch of confidence for a little bit and then I was out of the match there for a bit,” Federer said.
During a rare stretch of mid-match mediocrity from the owner of a record 17 Grand Slam titles — the 2009 French Open trophy is part of his collection — Federer lost 10 of 13 games, including the one in which he fell, but Simon could not keep Federer down.
Able to “tidy up my play,” as he put it, Federer went from hitting more than twice as many unforced errors as Simon in the second and third sets, 25-12, to generating more than twice as many winners in the fourth and fifth, 29-14.
Federer’s turnaround was not the biggest of the day. Not even close. That distinction belonged to 32nd seed Tommy Robredo of Spain, who is specializing in comebacks: He is the first man in 86 years to win three Grand Slam matches in a row after dropping the first two sets (France’s Henri Cochet pulled that off at Wimbledon in 1927).
Robredo did it in the second round on Wednesday last week. He did it in the third round on Friday. Then he did it in the fourth round on Sunday, defeating No. 11 seed Nicolas Almagro 6-7 (5/7), 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.
Robredo trailed 4-1 in the third set, 4-2 in the fourth and 2-0 in the fifth.
“Nobody dreams of doing such things,” said Robredo, who dropped to his knees, leaned forward and wept after winning.
Almagro’s take?
“I don’t know what adjective to use,” he said.
Robredo’s first French Open quarter-final since 2009 — he missed the tournament in 2011 and last year because of a leg that required surgery — is against another Spaniard, No. 4 seed David Ferrer.
Tsonga, the 2008 Australian Open runner-up, got past Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. Tsonga is 3-9 against Federer, but he did come back from a two-set hole to win their 2011 quarter-final at Wimbledon.
“I know he can beat me and he knows he can beat me, but I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Federer said.
In the mixed doubles, Zimbabwe’s Cara Black and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan eliminated Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Frederik Nielsen of Denmark 6-4, 6-0, while in the girls’ singles, Victoria Rodriguez of Maxico knocked out Taiwanese eighth seed Hsu Ching-wen 6-2, 7-6 (7/2).
In the women’s singles, Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2009 champion who is unseeded this year, defeated No. 8 seed Angelique Kerber 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
Fifth seed Sara Errani, last year’s runner-up, said she felt pain “like a knife” in her midsection and had difficulty breathing in the first set against 20th seed Carla Suarez Navarro, but after being treated wound up winning 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.
Errani’s quarter-final opponent is last year’s Wimbledon runner-up Agnieszka Radwanska, who eliminated 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic 6-2, 6-4.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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