Novak Djokovic storms past Alexander Zverev to book French Open semi-final spot

Stroll: Novak Djokovic has still not a lost a set at the French Open after beating Alexander Zverev.
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Joe Krishnan6 June 2019

Novak Djokovic has eased into the French Open semi-finals after a straight-sets victory over Alexander Zverev.

The world number one took a while to find his top level but eventually saw off the fifth seed 7-5, 6-2, 6-2.

It means the Serbian's hopes of holding all four Grand Slams in a non-calendar year are still alive, having won at Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open in January.

Djokovic also continued his invincible run in the tournament of not dropping a set but he was made to work in the first by Zverev.

The 22-year-old was matching the world number one pound-for-pound and struck what he thought could be the hammer blow, securing a rare break to go 5-4 up.

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That appeared to rattle the cage of Djokovic, who has triumphed just once in his career at Roland Garros back in 2016.

He found an extra gear to break back immediately and capitalised on some careless errors from Zverev to seal the first set 7-5.

From there, he never looked back and Zverev began to self-destruct, suffering the ignominy of being broken early on in the second set.

Djokovic soon found his rhythm and was at his best when it came to returning shots, scurrying across the baseline from corner to corner to frustrate the young German even more.

Things were made worse when Zverev served up a hat-trick of double faults to hand the second set on a silver platter to Djokovic and despite his best efforts, the top seed strolled to victory.

He will play 2018 runner-up Dominic Thiem for a place in the final, where he would face either Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal should he progress.

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