French Open Day 10 recap: Sharapova, Bouchard, Djokovic, Gulbis into semis

Author:
Courtney Nguyen
Publish date:
Jun 3, 2014

Novak Djokovic earned his sixth semifinal berth at the French Open. (Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images)

PARIS -- Two semifinal spots were booked in both the men's and women's draws at the French Open on Tuesday. Here's a review of Day 10:

What happened?

The women deliver two great quarterfinals: No. 7 Maria Sharapova and No. 18 Eugenie Bouchard both had to battle back to set up a glamour matchup in the semifinals on Thursday. Sharapova, the 2012 champion and '13 finalist, came within one game of losing to No. 35 Garbine Muguruza but rallied to win 1-6, 7-5, 6-1. Bouchard erased deficits of 2-5 in the first set and 1-4 in the third set to overcome No. 14 Carla Suarez Navarro 7-6 (2), 2-6, 7-5. "I'm just proud of the way I stayed in there," Bouchard said. The 20-year-old Canadian, who lost in the second round last year in her French Open debut, is into the semifinals for the second Grand Slam tournament in a row.

Ernests Gulbis continues career-best Slam run: At some point, Gulbis is going to get sick of being asked different variations of the question: What took you so long? The 25-year-old Latvian lacked the work ethic to match his considerable talent for a long time, but everything is coming together for him now. Gulbis -- who was ranked outside the top 100 as recently as February 2013 -- carved up No. 6 Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to reach his first major semifinal. Now ranked a career-high No. 17, and poised to crack the top 10 after Roland Garros unless Gael Monfils wins the title, Gulbis is no longer coasting. "I never had problems in school," Gulbis said. "Everything was coming easy. Tennis, everything was coming easy. I thought, I'm just going to grind in life like this, easy without any effort, and be successful. And then ... and then ... s--- happened," he said, laughing.

Novak Djokovic makes his fourth straight French Open semifinal: The No. 2 seed moved a step closer to completing the career Grand Slam with a 7-5, 7-6 (5), 6-4 win over No. 8 Milos Raonic. The Serb has made the semifinals of 15 of his last 16 majors. Djokovic and Gulbis, who trained together as teenagers in Germany, will play in the semifinals on Friday. "He's been playing really well. He's confident," Djokovic said of Gulbis. "But I like my chances because I have had a couple of great weeks on the clay courts, from Rome [where Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal for the title] to now the last 10 days in Roland Garros."