Nadal, Thiem avoid any drama en route to French Open final

After actually losing a set (gasp!) in the quarterfinals, Rafael Nadal was back to his ruthless best on Friday afternoon at the French Open.

Nadal booked a spot his the Roland Garros final for the 11th time in his career when he defeated Juan Martin Del Potro 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 during semifinal action. The Spaniard, who needed four sets to get past Diego Schwartzman on Wednesday and Thursday, withstood an early charge from Del Potro before pulling away and ultimately cruising in two hours and 14 minutes.

Del Potro’s one chance–well, six chances to be exact–came in the opener. The sixth-ranked Argentine earned three break-point opportunities at 1-1 and three more at 4-4 but failed to convert on any occasion. Unable to seize momentum, Del Potro faced the pressure of serving to stay in it at 4-5 and promptly got broken to throw away a set he could have won.

From there it was off to the races for Nadal, who surrendered a mere three total games the rest of the way. The 10-time champion had to thwart only one more break point, which he did at 2-0, 30-40 in the second set.

Highlights:

“You need to still focus,” Nadal said when asked about staring at a 0-40 deficit at 1-1 in the first and a 15-40 hole at 4-4. “Sometimes when you are love-40 you believe that you have already lost the game, and the normal thing is that you lose the game. Of course with love-40 and 15-40, (the) normal thing, at minimum, (is) you lose one of these two games; but today (that) was not that case. I feel a little bit lucky for that. For me, the only way to approach this is just think point by point, just try to think about how to win the point of love-40, then the 15-40. And then when you are 30-40, you know that you are close to [saving] it. Because if you come back to deuce, the chances are better for you than for the opponent.

“So (I was) just thinking in a positive way and just thinking that I have to hold; I can’t give him the game. If he wins the game, okay; but I will not give him. That’s the only way for me to approach the tough moments.”

“I think that was my chance of the match,” Del Potro said of the opening set. “I had a lot of break points; I couldn’t make it. Rafa served well, played good points [on the] break points, and I got unlucky in that moment. Could be (a) different match if I win the first set. But then he made me run a lot. (His) intensity is too high the whole match and I couldn’t stay [stay in it] after the first set. He deserved to win. He played much better from the beginning till the end.

“When you don’t take your chances against the No. 1 in the world, you’re in trouble. And that [happened] today…. It’s not easy (against Nadal at Roland Garros). It was almost impossible to beat him.”

Mission: Impossible now belongs to Dominic Thiem, who won Friday’s first semifinal. Having twice fallen one round short of the French Open title match, the eighth-ranked Austrian got over the hump by ending Marco Cecchinato’s run 7-5, 7-6(10), 6-1 in two hours and 17 minutes.

Highlights:

“I don’t think it’s a real breakthrough,” Thiem admitted. “I mean, I played (in the) semis (the) last two years. So (I) just went one step further today.

“The second-set tiebreak was the big key to the match, 100 percent, because obviously he felt all the matches from these two weeks after that. And if he would have won the tiebreak, he would [have been better] in the third set. So it was good for me that I won it.”

“I played [for two sets at] the same level [as] Dominic Thiem,” Cecchinato assessed. “I think he’s the second or third-best player on red clay. For me, [my] level is very good in this moment. And after Roland Garros, I am very, very happy…. If I won the second set, I think [it would be a] totally different the third set. But after the loss, I go a little bit down [mentally] and physically. I [have played] so many matches, so I think (it) is normal.”

Nobody has played more matches in recent years than Thiem. Now he gets to play in his biggest one of all.

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