PARIS • Maria Sakkari wanted to "enjoy the moment" and true to her words, she could not hide her joy after beating defending champion Iga Swiatek 6-4, 6-4 to become the first Greek woman to reach a Grand Slam semi-final at the French Open yesterday.
The world No. 18 will face unseeded Czech Barbora Krejcikova - who also reached her first Slam semi-final after beating Coco Gauff 7-6 (8-6), 6-3 - for a place in Saturday's final after seeing off Swiatek, who had required a medical timeout early in the second set.
Today's other semi-final sees Russian 31st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova tackle unseeded Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia.
"I am speechless. It is a dream coming true. I don't know, it is a very nice feeling and I could not have done it without my team and their support," said the 25-year-old Sakkari on court Philippe Chatrier, with up to almost 5,000 spectators now allowed to attend.
"We have a long way to go but we made a huge step today."
For only the second time in the Open era, there are four first-time Grand Slam semi-finalists in the women's singles, after the 1978 Australian Open.
Furthermore, for just the fifth time in Roland Garros history, a player seeded outside the top 10 will lift the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen on Saturday.
Sakkari is the second Greek in the semi-finals of the singles at this year's French Open after Stefanos Tsitsipas made the men's last four on Tuesday.
World No. 9 Swiatek was bidding to become the first woman to retain her title since 2007, when seven-time Slam champion Justine Henin of Belgium won her third consecutive crown.
The 20-year-old Pole said: "When I was on court, I felt it totally differently. As I said, I couldn't even sleep well yesterday. I slept like few hours.
"I think I was feeling everything twice as much as I should. It was hard to rationally just see what's going on."
Krejcikova, who is also through to the last four of the women's doubles with Katerina Siniakova, paid a poignant tribute to her former mentor Jana Novotna, the former Wimbledon champion who died of cancer aged just 49 in 2017.
"It's amazing. It's perfect," she said of matching Novotna's run to the Roland Garros semi-finals in 1990 and 1996.
"Every time I go on court, I step out of the court, I always think about her. I'm always wondering what she would tell me after such a run, all this winning matches and everything. I'm just really sad I cannot actually hear her and she cannot really say anything."
As Krejcikova looked to the past for inspiration, Gauff looked to the future and vowed to improve her decision-making on crucial points.
"I'm going to focus more on making less errors, just trusting myself on the set points. I feel like the set points I did have, I did play a little bit passive," she said.
"That's not kind of how I want to play tennis, I always want to play first-strike tennis. So that's something I'll work on."
In the men's draw, Rafael Nadal reached his 14th French Open semi-final by beating Diego Schwartzman 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
FRENCH OPEN
Day 12: Singtel TV Ch114 & StarHub Ch208, 5.50pm & 8.30pm
