Gusts of icy air swept through Roland-Garros on Tuesday, October 6, and on the Philippe-Chatrier court, it was Christmas ahead of time. To celebrate their quarter-final, Dominic Thiem and Diego Schwartzman had decided to cover themselves with offerings and, in this game, the Argentine was the most generous. During 5 h 8 and five sets, the two players alternated a few flashes, games of ping-pong from the baseline, but also a lot of profanity.
Between the nervous fatigue since his title at the US Open and his marathon in five sets against Hugo Gaston in the round of 16, where he had already shown signs of overwork, Dominic Thiem had little left in the tank.
Finalist of the last two Porte d’Auteuil editions, the Austrian was unusually messy and not very lucid. Predictable amortizations, a broken service and an anthology of forehand slaps sometimes too long, sometimes woody.
Usually one of the most enduring players in the exchange, he found himself at the start of the match regularly suffocated at the end of the race, strolled to the baseline by the small (1.70 m) Argentinian moped. Schwartzman snatched the first set after a decisive one-sided game (7-1).
Ping-pong game on clay
His ruddy face suggested that the world number 3 would quickly abdicate in the second set. That was without counting on Schwartzman’s own shipwreck. Instead of delivering the coup de grace, the fourteenth player in the world rushed and accumulated unforced errors.
Despite catastrophic service plays from the Austrian, the Argentine allowed him to return to the game. The two had been playing for over two hours when Thiem stuck to a sleeve everywhere.
Seeing is believing 😍 @ThiemDomi #RolandGarros https://t.co/EJnD46G0it
Diego Schwartzman probably thought that the slower the hourglass passed, the more it worked in his favor. At 5-3, it was used for the gain of 3e set. Alas, he redacted a set point and abandoned his throw-in in stride… before Thiem imitated him at 6-5. But the Austrian did not want to let go, despite the cold, the wind, and the fatigue and it was he who snatched the decisive game.
The game of table tennis on clay continued in the 4e set. By dint of stringing woody shots on both sides, the central court sometimes looked like a baseball field. The two men preferred to laugh about it, under the eyes of Carlos Moya, who had come to take notes for a possible semi-final for his colt, Rafael Nadal.
The more washed-out of the two was not what we thought: at the end of the baseline rallies, it was Schwartzman who bent his knees and took a deep breath. But Thiem collapsed when it came to serve for the match, leaving the Argentine to come back to two innings everywhere.
Two hours and 30 minutes in … @dieschwartzman #RolandGarros https://t.co/HVRv1WGVIM
First Grand Slam semi-final for Schwartzman
After five hours of the match, the Argentinian, seeded number 12 in the tournament, decided it was time to go to dinner. He took advantage of a new slump from his opponent to break away (4-2). He did not leave a single game to his opponent – but a friend off the court – and resolved to conclude this tennis UFO.
“I was extremely nervous in the second and third innings when I saw that I could win, but that I couldn’t achieve. I turned to my coach, who told me: “Just play tennis”, reacted after the match, the Argentinian at the microphone of Cédric Pioline. Not content with celebrating his first victory on Central Court, he won the first semi-final of his career.
Dominic Thiem, he came back down from the intoxicating heights where he had levitated since September 13 and his victory at the US Open, brought back to a prosaic reality: to hope to win a Grand Slam tournament, you have to be at your best physically and mentally. .
“In my opinion, it’s all going to be about recovery. The last few weeks have been hard, I’m not 100%, I’m starting to feel [la fatigue des] last few weeks physically but also emotionally, mentally I have drawn a lot in New York », he said on the eve of his quarter-final.
A little before the qualification of Diego Schwartzman, his compatriot Nadia Podoroska (131e World) became the first player in history from qualifying to reach the semi-finals of the Parisian Grand Slam. Tuesday, there was an air of Argentine national holiday Porte d’Auteuil.
