Rewriting history: Kasatkina, Kudermetova and Rublev reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garros, Medvedev stumbled

Storm Kasatkina and the character of Kudermetova

The current “Roland Garros” is more than successful for the Russians, since five domestic tennis players made their way into the second week of the competition at once.

And if the fans have recently become accustomed to the success of men, then the good results of women have become a pleasant surprise.

Moreover, Daria Kasatkina and Veronika Kudermetova not only reached the quarterfinals, but will also meet each other.

Both coped with rivals in the fourth round quite confidently.

First of all, this concerns Kasatkina, who has gained excellent shape.

The season as a whole is going well for her, because at three tournaments she got into the top four, at the same time returning to the top 20 of the WTA rankings, and now she is close to the same in France.

While Daria is rolling over her opponents.

Rebecca Shramkovoy, Fernande Contreras Gomez and Shelby Rogers, she gave only ten games.

It seemed that the most experienced 28th racket of the planet Camila Giorgi would be able to create problems for her, because the Italian is famous for powerful tennis, which many compare with men's.

However, a native of Togliatti managed to find an antidote for him.

She did not allow her opponent to feel self-confident and act at a comfortable speed.

The Russian woman constantly changed the direction of the blows and tried to play as unpredictably as possible.

But at every opportunity, she included a branded forehand.

This puzzled Georgie.

She felt as uncomfortable as possible and made an unforgivable number of unforced errors - 36. Kasatkina acted much more carefully and wrote down only ten as a liability.

Daria looked great at the reception.

She converted four break points, while Camila never took the opponent's serve.

As a result, the Russian woman won another easy victory, winning both sets with the same score of 6:2, and again stayed on the court for less than an hour and a half.

Kasatkina managed for the third time in her career and for the first time since 2018 to break into the quarterfinals of the Grand Slam tournament.

At the press conference, the athlete literally glowed with happiness.

According to her, before the match with Georgie, she was very worried, but she knew the strengths and weaknesses of the Italian very well.

“I am satisfied with my game and how I coped with difficult moments, and, of course, I am happy with the result,” said Kasatkina.

She also admitted that after reaching the semi-finals in Rome a week before Roland Garros, she felt confident in herself.

“This affects both decision-making on the court and the organization of time outside of it.

I try to focus on what I'm doing, on what's important, and not on any nonsense.

Staying focused is hard, but being distracted is easy.

Therefore, I make a lot of efforts to learn how to better concentrate on my work, ”added Daria.

If the success of the country's best tennis player who has caught the courage is to some extent logical, then Kudermetova's rise can be called a sensation.

Prior to the current tournament, Veronika had never been in her career even in the second week of the TSH.

Nevertheless, in 2022, she loudly declared herself, reaching the final in Istanbul, Dubai and Melbourne.

Now managed to sparkle in Paris.

Unlike Kasatkina, the meeting of the fourth round with Madison Keys was not easy for her.

After the first game, few could have imagined that the Russian woman would go further.

She took just one game and allowed the American to make two breaks.

A native of Kazan could not oppose anything to the powerful tennis of her opponent.

However, in the second set, the course of the confrontation completely changed.

Kudermetova managed to impose an even more powerful game on the US representative.

She responded to every blow of Keys with her most unpleasant shot.

Completely messed up with Madison and usually a strong serve.

Veronika acted superbly at the reception and seemed to read the intentions of the American, who felt more and more insecure.

As a result, the Russian at the start of the second installment led 3-0 with a break.

This was enough to bring the matter to victory, although the opponent tried to return to the game - 6:3.

In the decisive set, the American actually gave up.

Amazingly, the finalist of the US Open-2017 did not take a single game on her serve and was forced to cover her racket - 1:6.

Thus, for the first time in nine years, the Russian women's quarterfinal will be held at TBSh.

The last time this happened was in 2013 at the Australian Open, when Maria Sharapova defeated Ekaterina Makarova.

It is noteworthy that the paths of Kudermetova and Kasatkina had only crossed once before.

In 2021, in the quarterfinals of the tournament in St. Petersburg, Daria turned out to be stronger - 1:6, 6:1, 6:2.

Now she will again try to upset her compatriot.

“We won the Billie Jean King Cup together last year, so we have a lot of great memories together.

Before that, we played in many European championships, since we are the same age.

We have many shared memories.

Perhaps the fight at Roland Garros will be another one, ”Kasatkina emphasized.

Rublev's luck and Medvedev's helplessness

Daniil Medvedev and Andrei Rublev had a great opportunity to repeat the success of the girls.

In case of victories over Marin Cilic and Yannick Sinner, respectively, they had to determine the semi-finalist of the tournament in a head-to-head confrontation.

Rublev got through to the next round due to an opponent's injury.

The Italian started the match very powerfully and gave Andrei serious inconvenience.

The first set was a failure for him.

The Russian took only one game and looked extremely weak at the reception, where he scored few points.

Sinner, on the contrary, served superbly and completed five aces.

The Muscovite also made ten unforced errors.

Especially often he sent the ball into the net.

After such an unsuccessful segment, it seemed that the Russian would be hard to get together, but in the second game he played much more confidently and finally began to hit the court with the first ball.

And with the score 3:2 in his favor, the opponent took a medical timeout.

The athlete’s problems with his knee did not come as a surprise, since even in the third round meeting with Mackenzie McDonald he complained about his knee and resorted to the help of doctors.

Sinner returned to the court, but the pain was getting worse.

Already in the next game, he almost allowed Rublev to make a break, leading with a score of 40:0.

As a result, a little later, Andrei accepted the set and restored the parity - 1:6, 6:4.

The next set didn't last very long.

Yielding to the domestic tennis player the first two games, Yannick refused to continue the fight.

So Rublev, without making any extra effort, took a step towards confrontation with Medvedev.

He also managed to break into the top eight of the strongest TBSH for the fifth time.

Now the seventh racket of the planet has the opportunity for the first time in his career to reach the semi-finals.

Unfortunately, Medvedev failed to repeat the example of his compatriot.

He failed to compete with the experienced Cilic.

However, Daniil already went far enough on unloved ground, simultaneously knocking out the strong Serb Miomir Ketsmanovich from the fight.

In addition, Roland Garros became only the second tournament for him after the operation for a hernia.

The match of the fourth round showed that the second racket of the planet has not fully recovered yet.

In the first set, he won only two games, although the meeting began on an equal footing.

Opponents for the time being confidently took their serve.

Alas, with the score 3:2, the Croat made a break and then confidently brought the matter to victory.

Medvedev, on the other hand, began to make mistakes one after another.

In addition, he did not succeed at the reception.

In such a situation, the athlete in front of his eyes lost self-confidence.

In the second installment, the scenario was completely repeated.

Medvedev again won two games on his serve, and then allowed Cilic to convert a break point.

Only this time he lost with a slightly different score - 3:6.

Daniil did not manage to solve the problems with the reception, and on the opponent's serve he scored only five points.

It is not surprising that Daniel began to lose his nerve.

During one of the pauses, he began to argue with the judge.

The Russian believed that he left him too little time for respite in the pauses between side changes.

This did not help the tennis player.

The fans hoped that he would be able to make a comeback, as at last year's Wimbledon.

Then Medvedev also lost to Cilic in the first two games, and eventually won.

But it was useless to wait for a miracle on the ground.

As a result, the Muscovite allowed the Croat to make a couple more breaks and took only two games in the third set.

The statistics turned out to be completely on the side of the opponent.

For example, he won an incredible 89% of the balls on the first serve and converted five break points out of seven.

The Russian was noted exclusively with a minus sign: 28 unforced errors and five doubles.

Now Rublev will try to avenge him.