Šwiateková, Maia Haddadová and Zverev and Ruud are in the semifinals of Roland Garros

French Open tennis tournament, June 7, 2023, Paris. Polish tennis player Iga Šwiateková.

Paris – World number one and defending champion Iga Šwiateková advanced to the semi-finals at Roland Garros. The 22-year-old Pole beat the American Cori Gauff 6:4, 6:2 in a repeat of last year's final. In the next match, she will face fourteenth-seeded Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia, who turned the duel with Tunisian Uns Džábir and won 3:6, 7:6 and 6:1. The second semi-final pair in Paris consists of Karolína Muchová and Aryna Sabalenková of Belarus.

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Photogallery: Tennis tournament French Open 2023

German tennis player Alexander Zverev is among the top four at Roland Garros for the third time in a row. The Olympic champion from Tokyo, whose start in the semi-finals last year ended with a serious ankle injury, defeated Tomás Martín Etcheverry of Argentina 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarter-finals. Zverev's next opponent will be last year's finalist Casper Ruud. The Norwegian tennis player defeated his Danish rival Holger Rune in the Nordic derby, just like last year, 6:1, 6:2, 3:6, 6:3.

Šwiateková defeated Gauffová, who was three years younger, in the seventh match between them and again did not lose a set against her. In the duel, she played 19 winning balls, the American paid for 23 unforced errors. The native of Warsaw did not lose a set in Paris this year, she lost only 15 games in the tournament so far.

“It was not easy. The first set in particular was really tight. The quarterfinals are often the hardest matches,” Šwiateková said after match on the court.

Although she did not take advantage of an early break against Gauff in the first set, she broke her opponent's serve once more at 5:4. The sixth player in the world kept pace in the second set only in the beginning. From 2:2, she lost the remaining four games and Šwiateková could clench her fist with joy in an hour and a half. In Paris, she aims for her third title and her fourth Grand Slam victory.

Haddad Maia is the first Brazilian among the elite four in Paris in the so-called open era, i.e. since 1968. the second round. She has now won five matches on the Paris clay, of which the last four were in three sets.

She started poorly against Džábirová, she held serve only once in the opening set, but then she was able to lean on her serve and is celebrating the success of her life. The seventh ranked player, Džábirová, will not follow up on last year's title fights at Wimbledon and the US Open. Not even 38 winning balls and eight aces helped her.

Twenty-six-year-old Zverev is in the semifinals of a Grand Slam for the sixth time in his career, but he only played in the final in 2020 at the US Open. On the Paris clay, he crashed below the peak in 2021 after a five-set battle with Stefanos Tsitsipas, last year he tore ligaments in his ankle in the second set of a duel with Rafael Nadal and was out of action for half a year.

With twenty-three-year-old Etcheverry, who he played the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time, fighting for advancement for almost three and a half hours. “I don't even know what to say. I'm just happy. It was the hardest year of my life. I love tennis with all my heart and I lost it last year. So I'm glad to be back,” Zverev said on the court.

The 24-year-old Ruud managed a repeat of last year's heated quarter-final just as he did a year ago in four sets, destroying his opponents in the opening two sets with focused and precise play. Four years younger Rune, who collected seven double faults and 30 unforced errors in the first two sets, beat Rune for the fifth time in the sixth match between them and avenged his defeat in the Roman Open at Roland Garros.