After beating former world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals, Dominic Thiem entered the semi-finals with high confidence as his opponent Rafael Nadal. However, with the tennis player having lifted the cup 9 times in Paris, Nadal knows what he needs to do to extinguish the excitement of the young Austrian opponent.
Set 1 started unexpectedly when Thiem had a break right in the opening match where Nadal held the ball. However, the Austrian's joy did not last long, right in game 2, when Nadal had "heated up" and regained the usual playing tempo, he easily regained the break. The "ong" then only allowed Thiem to have 2 games and easily won 6-3.
Entering set 2, Thiem had difficulty when his left shots could not find the best feel for the ball, thereby failing to plan to change the situation of the Austrian tennis player. Seeing this weakness, Nadal focused on attacking the opponent's left shot. Set 2 ended after 10 games with a 6-4 victory for Nadal.
The match was quickly decided in set 3 when Thiem was physically and mentally weak and then lost 0-6. Thus, after 2 hours and 7 minutes of play, Rafa solved the opponent after 3 sets with the scores of 6-3, 6-4 and 6-0. This victory helped Nadal advance to the final to solve the remaining problem under the name Wawrinka. With just one more win, Nadal will complete his goal of winning La Decima at Roland Garros.
