TENNIS FRENCH OPEN:AFTER NOVAK Djokovic won his fourth-round match to set up a meeting yesterday with Ernests Gulbis, the presumption was he knew little about the young Latvian. That was wrong; Djokovic knew the 19-year-old very well.
The presumption that Djokovic would meet yesterday's birthday boy, 22-year-old Rafael Nadal, in the semi-final for a presumed meeting with Roger Federer in the final is proving right. Nadal and Djokovic kept their end yesterday, while today Federer meets Fernando Gonzalez for a place in the other semi-final.
Moving from presumptions to mind-reading, Federer, if he makes the final, is certain to want to meet Djokovic. Had he watched Nadal's 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 dissection of his compatriot Nicolas Almagro yesterday, he would have seen little to invite him onto Nadal's scorched court if the court of Djokovic were also available.
Nadal has not dropped a set since the tournament began last Sunday week, and while Almagro, the 19th seed, did not represent the most aggressive threat to Nadal's crown, the ease with which the reigning champion went about securing his place in the next round was impressively simple: hit harder and more accurately and run faster and farther.
Almagro, who had beaten Scotland's Andy Murray in the third round, is an accomplished dirt-tracker and had reason to expect better. He left the tournament crushed but not before he was asked about what had actually happened.
"Didn't you see?" he responded. "There was a guy called Nadal on Centre Court. I want to learn from what happened today, which is quite positive. Congratulations, Rafa. Quite clearly we'll have a champion for many years here in Roland Garros."
While Nadal's confirmation of his alpha-male status around this corner of Paris was in its own way mesmerising, the match that caught attention yesterday was Djokovic against the unheralded, unknown and highly talented Latvian that nobody other than the Serbian third seed seemed to know much about.
"He's very tall," Djokovic said before the match. "He uses his height for the serve, which is one of the biggest weapons. He makes life really difficult for opponents. He has a big forehand, very talented guy. He's made some good results but he's not consistent."
Djokovic added, "He's destroyed me in practice. I couldn't win a match. In practice, no chance."
Fresh-faced and game about playing on Court Philippe Chatrier, Gulbis did not disappoint and made Djokovic sweat for over three hours, meeting him toe to toe all the way. The first set fell to Djokovic in just over an hour when a Gulbis forehand found the net on the fourth break point.
But Gulbis was anything but deterred and straight away broke the Djokovic serve in the second set before the Australian Open champion took it back in the eighth game to drive that set toward a tiebreak. There the Serb's experience showed and, again playing big on the important points, he closed out his opponent to just three points.
Gulbis was occasionally inconsistent but weighted his game with some stunning winners, Djokovic's bouncing racquet often expressing his own deep frustration.
In all Djokovic earned 16 break points on the Gulbis serve and took four, the last of which came in the third set and on the only match point for the 7-5, 7-6 (7-3), 7-5 victory.
"Novak is a player who always plays well on the deciding points and every deciding point he made me work so hard," said Gulbis.
"Most of the time I made errors because there were no errors from him at all when it came to important points.
"That's what makes him number three in the world, that he can play those points with no errors at all."
The meeting of Nadal and Djokovic is expected to bring the best out of both, although, in their last meeting on clay, two weeks ago in Hamburg, Nadal emerged the winner. But the three-time champion could not be drawn into predicting how he might make it to his fourth successive final here and threaten to equal the record four straight wins of Bjorn Borg. The great Swede won on Centre Court in 1974 and 1975 before his four in succession from 1978 to 1981.
"I think this is all just, talk, talk, talk," said Nadal.
"What is important is to play well on Friday. He can play very beautiful tennis on clay. He won at Rome; semi-final Hamburg; semi-final in Monaco; and he lost to me or Federer. Quite clearly he's a good player on clay."
The details
MEN'S SINGLES:Quarter-finals: (3) Novak Djokovic
(Ser) bt Ernests Gulbis (Lat) 7-5 7-6 (7-3) 7-5, (2) Rafael Nadal
(Spa) bt (19) Nicolas Almagro (Spa) 6-1 6-1 6-1.
WOMEN'S SINGLES:fourth round: (4) Svetlana Kuznetsova (Rus) bt (16) Victoria Azarenka (Blr) 6-2 6-3, Kaia Kanepi (Est) bt Petra Kvitova (Cze) 6-3 3-6 6-1. Quarter-finals: (2) Ana Ivanovic (Ser) bt (10) Patty Schnyder (Swi) 6-3 6-2, (3) Jelena Jankovic (Ser) bt Carla Suarez-Navarro (Spa) 6-3 6-2.
MEN'S DOUBLES:Quarter-final: (2) Daniel Nestor (Can) and Nenad Zimonjic (Ser) bt Steve Darcis (Bel)and Olivier Rochus (Bel) 6-1 6-4.
WOMEN'S DOUBLES:Quarter-finals: (1) Cara Black (Zim) and Liezel Huber (USA) bt Nuria Llagostera Vives (Spa) and Maria Jose Martinez (Spa) 7-6 (8-6) 6-2, (7) Alona Bondarenko (Ukr) and Kateryna Bondarenko (Ukr) bt Ashley Harkleroad (USA) and Galina Voskoboeva (Rus) 6-3 6-3, (10) Anabel Medina Garrigues (Spa) and Virginia Ruano Pascual (Spa) bt (4) Yung-Jan Chan (Tpe) and Chia-Jung Chuang (Tpe) 6-7 (4-7) 7-5 7-5.
