Novak ends Gulbis's fairytale

2008-06-03 18:59

Dave James

Paris - Serbian third seed Novak Djokovic reached his fifth consecutive Grand Slam semi-final on Tuesday when he ended childhood friend Ernests Gulbis's fairytale French Open run.

Third seeded Djokovic, a semi-finalist here last year, saw off Gulbis 7-5 7-6 (7/3) 7-5 and will face triple defending champion Rafael Nadal for a place in Sunday's final.

Australian Open champion Djokovic and Gulbis first trained together as youngsters at the Munich academy owned by former Germany and Croatia Davis Cup coach Niki Pilic and have been firm friends ever since.

With a little more composure, Gulbis could have pulled off a famous win over his old pal, but his 60 unforced errors and seven double faults told a sorry story.

"We know each other well from being at the same academy and have been friends for a long time," said Djokovic.

"He's had a great tournament and I'm happy to see him doing so well."

Unseeded Gulbis, bidding to become the first Latvian to reach a Grand Slam semi-final, saw his serve come under siege in the first set where he had to save three break points in the fourth game and five more in the sixth.

The 19-year-old bravely fought off three set points in the 12th game but his resolve finally cracked under the Djokovic assault when he buried a weary, running forehand into the net to conclude the 63-minute opener.

Error-strewn afternoon

Djokovic hadn't faced a single break point in the entire first set, but Gulbis carved out three in the first game of the second and opened up a 1-0 lead with an accurate down the line forehand.

The Serbian world number three then levelled at 4-4 before running away with the tie-break which was played in pouring rain.

Gulbis's error-strewn afternoon continued when another simple forehand was buried into the Suzanne Lenglen Court net allowing Djokovic to nip ahead 3-2 in the third set.

Gulbis held on grimly, changing his racquet twice as he desperately sought a way back.

Djokovic served for the match at 5-4 but his opponent broke back to level at 5-5 only to return the advantage in the next game.

Djokovic then wrapped up the quarter-final when Gulbis only laid half a racquet on a deep service.

Nadal was celebrating his 22nd birthday on Tuesday and went into his last eight clash with Almagro boasting a 2-0 career record over the world number 20.

The triple champion has an extra incentive as a defeat would mean losing his world number spot, which he has held for almost three years, to Djokovic.

The remaining quarter-finals take place on Wednesday with top seed Roger Federer facing Chile's Fernando Gonzalez and Spanish fifth seed David Ferrer tackling France's Gael Monfils.

- SAPA