In the end, he gathered himself to close out a 6-3, 6-2, 6-7, 7-5 win in 3hr 28min against an exhausted-looking Berrettini, who seemed to be suffering a recurrence of an old abdominal injury. Not only did almost 5,000 fans have to be escorted out of the stands at 11pm, thanks to the Parisian Covid curfew, but Djokovic also needed treatment on a cut hand after an uncharacteristic slip and fall. The plot thickened as the match clock ticked past three hours. But a couple of false shots in the third-set tie-break turned this into a much more complicated affair. Playing the night session, Djokovic was a matter of inches away from easing past Italy’s Matteo Berrettini in short order. Each matches delivered real drama, even if the ultimate destination was a predictable one. Wednesday's only surprise was that both men dropped a set in their respective quarter-finals. It’s a shame that the 58 th meeting between these two giants will arrive so early, but that was always a possible consequence of Nadal’s laughable seeding at No 3 (itself a result of the grand slams slavishly following the ATP rankings rather than coming up with a surface-specific list of their own). It might not be a final – not officially, at any rate – but the French Open will reach a crescendo in Friday's showdown between Rafael Nadal and his closest clay-court rival Novak Djokovic.
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