Djokovic, who will lose the No. 1 spot in the world to Carlos Alcaraz on Monday, will come to Paris with an unremarkable record of five wins to three losses in three tournaments on clay this season. He was successively stopped in the eighth-finals in Monte-Carlo, then in the quarter-finals in Banja Luka (Bosnia) and Rome.
At the age of 20, Rune won his second consecutive victory against the Serb, after the final of the Masters 1000 in Paris in November. For a place in the final, he will face the world N.4 Casper Ruud or the Argentine Francisco Cerundolo (31st), opposed in the evening.
Transparent in the first set, in which he multiplied the direct faults and appealed to the doctor, Djokovic recovered a little in the second, and after a long interruption due to rain, at 5-4, 0-30 in his favor, equalized at a set everywhere from the resumption.
But the Dane took control of the game with authority played under a persistent drizzle, with a double break to escape 4-0, then 5-1. On serve for the win of the match, he discarded a breaking ball before concluding after 2h18 min of play.
Denmark's Holger Rune cheers after his victory over Serbia's Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters 1000 on May 17, 2023 in Rome © Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP
Djokovic, a six-time Rome champion, had not lost at the quarter-final stage in the Italian capital for a decade.
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