French Open final: Stefanos Tsitsipas set to face Novak Djokovic
Fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas reached his first Grand Slam final on Friday after defeating Alexander Zverev in a tense Roland Garros semi-final. Hours later, world number one Novak Djokovic staged one of his biggest wins by knocking out 20-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal in the second semi-final. The Serbian will now face Tsitsipas in a bid to capture his second French Open crown.
Djokovic claimed easy wins over Tennys Sandgren, Pablo Cuevas, and Ricardas Berankis in the first three rounds respectively. However, he dropped two sets against Lorenzo Musetti, and one each against Matteo Berrettini and Nadal. The Serbian is now 26-3 in the ongoing season, having won the Serbian Open and Australian Open. Notably, all of his three defeats have come on clay.
Djokovic earned his 80th match-win at the French Open after defeating Nadal. The world number one is now 80-15 in the tournament. He entered his sixth final at French Open, having lost four of them. Overall, Djokovic proceeded to his 29th Grand Slam final, now the second-most after Roger Federer (31). He was earlier tied with Nadal (28) on this list.
Just like Djokovic, Tsitsipas showed his dominance in this year's French Open. The Greek dropped a set or more only twice, against John Isner (third round) and Zverev (semi-final) respectively. After winning the semi-final against Zverev, Tsitsipas entered his first Grand Slam final. He has now amassed a tour-leading 39 wins in the season, including 22 on clay-courts.
Djokovic has a lead of 5-2 over Tsitsipas in the ATP head-to-head series. He recently defeated the Greek 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, in the quarter-final in Rome. The Serbian also trounced him in the 2020 Roland Garros semi-finals. He has won the last four encounters against Tsitsipas. Meanwhile, the latter has only beaten Djokovic on hard-court (Shanghai, 2019 and Canada, 2018).
Djokovic is one victory away from capturing his 19th Grand Slam title. He is only behind Nadal and Roger Federer (20 each) in terms of major titles. Djokovic could also become the first man in the Open Era to win each of the four Grand Slams at least twice (French Open: 1, Australian Open: 9, Wimbledon: 5, and US Open: 3).
Tsitsipas is set to become the youngest Grand Slam champion (men's singles) since Juan Martin del Potro, who won the 2009 US Open, aged 20 years 355 days. It is interesting to note that the former is now 6-4 in five-set matches.
