TENNIS/FRENCH OPEN: THE OVERRIDING concern for the 21-year-old Serb Novak Djokovic, who likes to impersonate other players, is that he may have to beat the Spaniard with the large biceps projecting from the green sleeveless shirt if he is to win his second Grand Slam final and first French Open.

To follow through on what could be a wild assumption that both the 2008 Australian Open champion, Djokovic, and Spain's Rafael Nadal will carry their so far unbeaten campaigns as far as the semi-finals, Djokovic, aka the The Djoker, must at that stage beat "Rafa" and then will almost certainly have to deal with the lord of the court himself, Switzerland's Roger Federer.

On the scale of difficult sporting projects, the young Serb's ambitions at Roland Garros are set quite high.

Nadal's unshakable belief is that he will become the best ever player on clay, and a win here would put him on a pedestal with Bjorn Borg, the only player in modern times to have won four in a row at Roland Garros, while Federer, with 12 Grand Slams and counting, continues to demonstrate his greatness, if not so loudly as last year.

But if any player on the tour has the talent and has demonstrated an ability to bridge the gap that has opened between, on the one hand, Federer and Nadal and, on the other hand, the rest of the pack, it is Djokovic with his rounded game.

His celebrity status on You Tube impersonating Nadal has not undermined his success on court, and yesterday's wholly controlled 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over the French hope Paul Henri Mathieu was in keeping with how he can win tough games in a seemingly effortless way.

While Djokovic did have to scramble at times and claw back some break point opportunities from Mathieu, he did so with consideration and absence of panic.

On two occasions on his own serve he allowed the 18th seed to take a 0-40 lead before fighting back to win the games. And his performance was better than in all his previous three matches.

"I used the momentum and just tried to be smart, you know, change the pace a lot. I knew he was a player that likes to play the same pace, more or less," said Djokovic, who refused to be drawn into discussion about Nadal.

"I don't want to answer. I still need to win a match to get to Nadal," he insisted.

But his opponent, as with many players when they are knocked out of a Grand Slam event, was more free with his observations.

"He is one of the very few players in front of which you have the feeling that you are suffocating," said Mathieu of Djokovic.

"He puts on a lot of pressure from the baseline and to score a point against him you have to play your game and take a lot of risks."

The Frenchman was then asked if he thought Djokovic could win the tournament.

"Yeah, I think he can win the tournament," he replied.

Another consideration in the anticipated semi-final meeting of the two is that while Djokovic was warming to an evening meal in a well appointed Parisian hotel last night, Nadal was once again waiting out another rain break.

Being the top billing generally means performing in the last game on the biggest court, and from the beginning of the championships eight days ago that has often meant interruptions from the weather.

One other matter that might come between a semi-final meeting of Djokovic and Nadal, who was imperious and shot through the interruptions and the sets against his compatriot Fernando Verdasco, 6-1, 6-0, 6-2, is Ernests Gulbis.

At every Grand Slam there is a fairytale story, a player to lionise, to champion and to occasionally patronise. Yesterday Gulbis fitted snugly into that narrative, booked a quarter-final against Djokovic and managed to embarrass most of the developed nations in world tennis, including Ireland.

The well educated 19-year-old from Latvia, who had never before posted more than three wins in succession on clay, beat Michael Llodra 6-4, 7-6, 6-3 before announcing that in Latvia he finds it difficult to book a tennis court for practice and is governed by a federation that receives an annual government grant that would not buy a parking space let alone a tennis court in Dublin.

"Our country before gave 3,000 Lats - that's around €5,500 per year - to our tennis federation. With that money you can't organise two tournaments, you know. So, that's the deal," said Gulbis, who is thinking about combining tennis with university next year.

Ranked 80 in the world, Gulbis is the first player in his country to break into the top 100; the highest-ranked Latvian before him was ranked somewhere outside the top 300.

He took three sets in just over two hours against Llodra, ranked 41, to propel himself forward for a meeting with the Serb number-three seed, who has also needed just three sets in all but one of his matches.

"I mean, I'm not calm. I'm not mature or something. I'm just happy," explained Gulbis. "I don't want to jump around and do crazy stuff. I'm just relieved that it's over. It's like a stone (weight) falling off from you."

He is entitled to feel lighter but not necessarily in his wallet; he is guaranteed €132,500 for reaching the quarter-final.