After five hours, Diego Schwartzman gets past Dominic Thiem, into semis

PARIS — As Diego Schwartzman played through the wind and rain, and into the dark of night, at the French Open, contesting a total of 376 points spread out across five sets and 5 hours, 8 minutes, he knew it would be difficult to put away Dominic Thiem.

Schwartzman knew, too, of course, just how much it would mean to finally win a Grand Slam quarterfinal after failing in three previous tries.

And so, as he kept wasting chances and kept letting sets slip away Tuesday night, Schwartzman yelled at himself or at his coaches, put his hands on his hips or smirked at his mistakes. Then, two points from defeat against Thiem, the U.S. Open champion and two-time runner-up at Roland Garros, Schwartzman found his way and emerged with a 7-6 (1), 5-7, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (5), 6-2 victory Tuesday by taking the last four games.

“I was just so nervous, because I saw the chance today,” said the 12th-seeded Schwartzman, a 28-year-old from Argentina.

He called his advancement into his first major semifinal “a big step.”

“At the end, this night, I deserved to win,” Schwartzman said with a chuckle.

Thiem said as much, too, about his friend after a grueling contest in which more than 100 of the points lasted at least nine strokes — frequently going past 20 or even 30 shots.

Schwartzman broke to go up 4-2 in the fifth when Thiem netted a backhand, and again to end it, when Thiem put two drop shots into the net.

The whole thing could have been over much sooner at Court Philippe Chatrier, where the new $55 million retractable roof was left open even though it rained right before the match began and occasionally during play.

Schwartzman was two points from taking the second set. He was one point from grabbing the third. But Thiem kept fighting back and eventually was two points from winning the match while Schwartzman served at 6-5 in the fourth, then again at 5-all in that set’s tiebreaker.

“To be honest, I was over the limit today,” said Thiem, who won his first Grand Slam title in New York in a fifth-set tiebreaker less than a month ago and was pushed to five sets in his fourth-round match in Paris.

The 27-year-old from Austria described himself as “physically and mentally on the edge” on Tuesday.

“To win that match, I should have done it in four,” said Thiem, who was trying to become only the fourth man in the Open era, which began in 1968, to get to at least the semifinals in Paris for five consecutive years. “In the fifth set, he was just a little more fresh and better than me.”

Schwartzman next will face 12-time champion Rafael Nadal or 19-year-old Jannik Sinner of Italy. Their quarterfinal was scheduled for later Tuesday.

Schwartzman beat Nadal at a clay-court tuneup event in Rome last month.

Meanwhile, Alexander Zverev posted a screenshot of his negative test for the coronavirus on his social media feed on Monday, putting to rest fears that he played his fourth-round match at the French Open while infected by COVID-19.

Those concerns were triggered by Zverev saying that he was hampered by a fever and respiratory difficulties following his loss to Sinner.

“I wanted to update everyone that I have again tested negative for COVID,” Zverev wrote. “I wasn’t 100% yesterday and will now take a few days to recover.”

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.