PARIS, (Reuters) – No man has won four grand slams in a row for 43 years and Novak Djokovic came close to finding out just how difficult pulling off the feat is when he diced with defeat before conjuring a great escape at the French Open yesterday.
Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open champion Djokovic appeared to be heading for his earliest grand-slam defeat in three years before he hauled himself back from two-sets-to-love down for only the third time in his career to subdue Italian Andreas Seppi 4-6 6-7 6-3 7-5 6-3 and reach the last eight.
The ear-splitting wails of fellow world number one Victoria Azarenka were silenced, however, at least for another year at Roland Garros. The Belarussian world number one slumped to a 6-2 7-6 defeat by Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova.
Asked how she would recover from the defeat, a stone-faced Azarenka said sarcastically: “I’m going to kill myself!”
While Azarenka lost her chance to become the first woman since Jennifer Capriati in 2001 to complete an Australian-French Open double, Li Na become the sole Roland Garros women’s champion still standing in Paris.
Following the earlier exits of former winners Serena Williams and Francesca Schiavone, Italy’s Sara Errani followed up her win over 2008 title holder Ana Ivanovic by dumping out 2009 victor Svetlana Kuznetsova yesterday with a 6-0 7-5 win.
The claycourt specialist will next run into German 10th seed Angelique Kerber, who beat Croatian Petra Martic 6-3 7-5.
While Azarenka’s and Kuznetsova’s defeats caused ripples on day eight, it was nothing like the shockwaves that were reverberating around a chilly and blustery Roland Garros as men’s world number one Djokovic fell two sets behind.
Before the last-16 showdown, Djokovic had joked: “I think half of Serbia will support Sepp… (because) he’s very famous in Serbia” for winning the Belgrade tournament.
After yesterday, Seppi’s name will be known around the world.
Seventy-seven unforced errors over four hours and 18 minutes of high drama summed up why the world number one found the going tough against a man he had beaten in all seven of their previous meetings.