Nine-time French Open champion and fourth seed Rafael Nadal advanced to the semifinals courtesy of a 6-2, 2-0 retirement win over 20th seed and fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta, retiring with a left abdominal injury.
14-time Grand Slam champion and presumptive favorite for a tenth Roland Garros title Rafael Nadal’s quest for La Decima marches on, as a left abdominal injury from 20th-seeded countrymen Pablo Carreno Busta gave the fourth seed a 6-2, 2-0 retirement win.
In the opening set, both players struggled on serve, with Nadal holding in the first game before both players exchanged breaks for 2-1. The nine-time champion continued to take advantage of Carreno Busta’s struggles on serve, breaking routinely before following that up with a love hold for a 4-1 lead. The fourth seed seized a third straight break of his countrymen’s serve, taking his first break point to claim the double break and go up 5-1.
Serving for the opening set, Nadal played a puzzling service game, getting broken to love, forcing Carreno Busta to serve to stay in the opening set. The 20th-seeded Spaniard was broken for the fourth straight time, giving up the set 6-2 as his abdominal injury made it very tough to serve.
Nadal began the second set with a comfortable hold of serve to 15, going up 1-0 early on. Having yet to hold a service game, the situation went from bad to worse for Carreno Busta as the 25-year-old surrendered yet another service game to go down 2-0. Carreno Busta attempted to play one more point on Nadal’s serve, but after a wayward overheard gave the 14-time major winner 15-0, the 20th seed Carreno Busta retired down 6-2, 2-0, giving Nadal a retirement into the semifinals, moving two wins from an unprecedented 10th French Open title.
Following the less than one hour match, Nadal was confident in his first five matches here in Paris, yet cautious to overplay his title chances too much. ” No, yes, obviously was not the perfect way and especially against a good friend, no? Sorry for him. He was playing great. He had a great event. Is tough when these kind of things happens, but he had a great event. Overall, I think he will be positive about what happened here, and that’s important I think for him, for now, but at the same time for the future, no,” said a very complimentary Nadal.
“He’s in a privileged position on the raise. He’s gonna fight for important things for this year and fight to finish season top 8, top 10. Gonna be a big, big improvement for him. No, Pablo felt something in the 5-2 with one serve wide. That’s what he told me. It’s impossible to analyze now how bad it is. But I hope it’s not very bad, because he stop quick enough.”
“I had that in 2009 US Open, and I played during the whole event with this. And I started with a strain, 7 millimeters on the abdominal, and I finished it with 27, 28. So was stupid for my part, but I played event, no? But I think is much better what he did, and that’s probably the best way to keep going without wait for a lot of weeks,” commented the nine-time French Open champion.
Having yet to drop and set through five matches at Roland Garros and looking in good form and well rested, Nadal described his title chances saying, ” Is always the same, no? If it’s too much, is too much. If it’s less, is less. I am in semifinals. That’s all. I am in semifinals and with a very positive feelings. I played well all the matches here. Until the 5-2, I think I was playing well, too, today. So positive feelings and playing well. The rest of the things, you never know. So it’s difficult to say. Better, worse? I want to be in that position. That’s all,” said an excited fourth-seeded Spaniard.
Awaiting Nadal in the semifinals is sixth-seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem, who stunned world number two and defending champion Novak Djokovic 7-6, 6-3, 6-0 today in his quarterfinal match on Court Suzanne Lenglen. Nadal and Thiem, the two best clay court players this year, have met three times on the dirt this year, with the Spaniard winning in straight sets in finals in Barcelona and Madrid, before Thiem came roaring back to defeat Nadal in straight sets a few weeks ago in Rome, Nadal’s only loss on clay this year.
Asked about the proposition of facing 23-year-old Thiem, Nadal said, “Thiem is a tough player. I hope that I won’t lose. I won in Barcelona, Madrid, and I lost to him in Rome. We played three times with Dominic. We can have a look at the statistics. We can talk about statistics for hours, but what is important is to consider the match.”
“So either you play well and you advance to the next round or you lose and you’re out. If I play well, I hope that I will be able to book my spot in the final. If I don’t play well, I will be out of the tournament,” commented a candid world number four.
“If I play well, I will be able to reach the finals. So my tennis level will have to be good and intense. I will put pressure upon their shoulders immediately,” concluded Nadal.
