Nadal has crushed Djokovic 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 to safe a spot within the semi-finals. The 13-time Roland Garros champion will meet Germany’s Alexander Zverev for a spot in Sunday’s last.

They’ve now met 10 instances at Roland-Garros alone, and their head-to-head right here is dotted with matches broadly thought to be a few of the finest to ever be performed on this floor. Six-time champion Bjorn Borg known as their 2013 semi-final the perfect clay-court match he’d ever seen, a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-7(3), 9-7 win for Nadal.

“He confirmed why he is a terrific champion. You know, staying there mentally powerful and ending the match the best way he did,” a subdued Djokovic mentioned throughout his post-match press convention.

“Congrats to him and his group. No doubt he deserved it… I misplaced to a greater participant immediately.”

Djokovic got here into the match with a 30-28 lead in his head-to-head over Nadal, however trailing the 13-time Roland-Garros champion 2-7 on his happiest searching grounds.

It’s a pattern that has been slowly delivering Djokovic’s favour lately: the Serbian handed Nadal his solely Roland-Garros quarter-final loss in 2015, and his solely semi-final defeat simply final yr.

“He was a greater participant, I feel, in necessary moments,” Djokovic mentioned. “I used to be gaining momentum as I used to be coming again within the second set, managed to win the second set, and I believed, ‘Okay, I’m back in the game’.

“But then he had one other two, three implausible video games initially of the third. He was simply capable of take his tennis to a different stage in these, notably moments initially of all units, really, besides the fourth.

“I had my possibilities within the fourth. Served for the set, couple set factors. Just one or two photographs might have taken me right into a fifth. Then it is actually anyone’s match.”