Beijing time on June 1 news, the 2022 Season Of France Open began the men's singles quarterfinals competition. The 59th time of the Dana finale was staged in the night finale, and finally Nadal defused two sets in the fourth set, defeating Djokovic 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4) to avenge last year's semi-final defeat and reach the French Open final four for the 15th time in his career, and in the semi-final he will face No. 3 seed Zverev. After this campaign, Nadal also rewrote his record against Djokovic to 29 wins and 30 losses!
This is the 17th consecutive season that the two legends have met on the Tour, and the total of 59 encounters continues to set a new record for men's tennis. They met in the semi-finals of last year's French Open, when Djokovic won 3-1 and eventually completed a career double grand slam.
Djokovic is in strong form at the French Open, not conceding a set in the first four rounds, and the Serb has won nine consecutive singles and 22 consecutive sets since the Rome Masters. This is djokovic's 16th consecutive year in total to reach the french open men's singles quarterfinals, after a record of 11 wins and 4 losses in 15 quarter-finals.
Compared to Djokovic, Nadal's path to the French Open has been slightly tortuous. In the fourth round, espanyol was stubbornly dragged into the decider by Aliassim to pass the tiebreaker, which was only the third French Open five-set battle of Nadal's career. Like Djokovic, Nadal reached the quarter-finals of his career 16th French Open, after a record of 14 wins and 1 loss in the previous 15 times, with the only defeat coming from a loss to Djokovic in 2015.
At the beginning of the game, Nadal quickly got into shape, attacking in Djokovic's first serve, cashing in on the third break point and completing the break. In the fifth set, Djokovic made too many mistakes, and Nadal broke again and the score came to 4-1. In the first set, Nadal was in a more stable form than Djokovic, taking advantage of two breaks to take a 6-2 lead. Technical statistics, Nadal led 12-8 in winning points, and unforced errors were about 3 times less than 6-9.
The second set opened with Djokovic losing his first two serves and Nadal quickly took a 3-0 lead. The dream-like number one seed strengthened the stability of the return ball, and constantly rushed to attack Nadal's second serve, and after two returns, he went down four consecutive sets to reverse the score to 4-3. At the end of the set, Nadal was clearly slightly conservative under pressure, while Djokovic became more and more courageous, completing a fatal break and pulling back a set 6-4. The two sides scored 1-1 and returned to the same running line.
At the beginning of the third set, Djokovic's old problem of slow heat did not improve, and Nadal scored four straight points to break the first set. In the fifth set, Xiao De gave up four consecutive points in a 30-0 service set, and Nadal broke again to extend the score to 4-1. With two break advantages, Nadal won the set 5-2, and after successfully saving the serve, he won another set 6-2 to achieve a 2-1 lead. Djokovic had 16 unforced turnovers in the third set, while Nadal had just seven. Djokovic had seven wins for Djokovic and nadal for 8. The break point grasped Nadal 2 to break 2, djokovic did not break.
In the second set of the fourth set, Nadal's serve declined, the short on the break point was changed by the main judge to go out of bounds, and Djokovic took the lead in completing the break. Djokovic, who maintained a lead, won the set 5-3, but Nadal launched a fierce counterattack in this set, defusing two sets and breaking down, also chasing the score to 4-5. The match then went into the rush of seven, the seventh djokovic made a lot of mistakes, Nadal held 5 match points 6-1, although Djokovic chased down to 4-6, but Nadal still won 7-4, won the fourth set, thus revengeing the opponent with an aggregate score of 3-1, and reaching the final four of the French Open for the 15th time in his career.
Nadal will face No. 3 seed Zverev in the semi-finals, with the German beating title-winning favourite Alcaraz 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7) to avenge madrid's defeat and advance to the final four of the French Open for two consecutive years, waiting for The winner of Dana. It was also the first time in Zverev's career that he had won the world's top ten (1 win and 11 losses) at a Grand Slam.