<\/p>\n
Rafael Nadal demonstrated once again why he is the greatest player in French Open history by beating long-time rival Novak Djokovic in a late-night thriller to reach the men\u2019s singles semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Nadal, going for a 14th title, started superbly and fought off resistance from defending champion Djokovic to win 6-2 4-6 6-2 7-6 (7-4) at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n
Nadal secured victory at 1:15 am local time after over four hours on court.<\/p>\n
The 21-time Grand Slam winner now faces third seed Alexander Zverev on Friday.<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s Zverev, 25, reached the semi-finals for the second successive year after surviving teenage sensation Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s fightback earlier on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo win against Novak there is only one way: to play your best from the first point to the last,\u201d said 35-year-old Nadal, who thanked the Paris crowd for showing their \u201clove\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of those magic nights for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Victory for fifth seed Nadal avenged his semi-final defeat by Djokovic last year and extended his all-time record on the Roland Garros clay to 110 wins in 113 matches.<\/p>\n
The rivalry between the pair is the most enduring in men\u2019s tennis, with Nadal winning their 59th meeting and seeing him narrow the gap to 30-29 in the head-to-head.<\/p>\n
\u201cNadal showed why he is a great champion and stayed mentally tough. No doubt he deserves it,\u201d said Djokovic.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the better player in the important moments, he started well and I didn\u2019t start so well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gained momentum in the second set and I thought I was back in the game. But he was able to take his tennis to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rafael Nadal demonstrated once again why he is the greatest player in French Open history by beating long-time rival Novak Djokovic in a late-night thriller to reach the men\u2019s singles semi-finals. Nadal, going for a 14th title, started superbly and fought off resistance from defending champion Djokovic to win 6-2 4-6 6-2 7-6 (7-4) at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1106273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1518,318,15750,5937,9194,5837],"class_list":["post-1106271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-beats","tag-djokovic","tag-latenight","tag-nadal","tag-paris","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1106271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1106271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1106271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1106271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}