For Marco Cecchinato, who fell to Dominic Thiem 7-5, 7-6(10), 6-1, the lasting memory of his surprise run to the Roland Garros semi-finals wasn’t when he ousted 2016 champion Novak Djokovic in a 24-point tie-break during the quarter-finals, one of the moments of the fortnight. It also wasn’t when Cecchinato, down two sets to love in the first round, came back to beat Romania’s Marius Copil 10-8 in the fifth set to secure his maiden Grand Slam victory.

The finest memory for Cecchinato, who captivated tennis fans across the world, was when the fans shouted the love back at the Italian.

“I think today, all day, on Philippe-Chatrier, every point, [the fans] said ‘Forza, Marco’. So I think this is the best moment for me. Against Dominic Thiem, he is Top 10, and today all the people were for me,” Cecchinato said.

It’s worth repeating: the Italian had not won a Grand Slam match before Roland Garros, having gone 0-4 since the 2015 US Open. But then he defeated Copil, Argentine lucky loser Marco Trungelliti, 10^th seed Pablo Carreno Busta, eighth seed David Goffin and former No. 1 Djokovic to make the semi-finals. Cecchinato became the lowest-ranked Roland Garros semi-finalist since No. 100 Andrei Medvedev 19 years ago.

“[It] was the special tournament for me. I played two sets the same level against Dominic Thiem. I think he’s the second- or third-best player on red clay,” Cecchinato said. “The level is very good in this moment. And after Roland Garros, I am very, very happy.”

Cecchinato reminded everyone that his run didn’t come from completely out of nowhere. The 25-year-old Italian, as a lucky loser, won his maiden ATP World Tour title in April on clay at the Gazprom Hungarian Open in Budapest. Prior to that, Cecchinato had been 5-29 in tour-level matches.

Read & Watch: Champion Cecchinato: Italian Wins Maiden ATP World Tour Title

“I think I started two months ago, not the last two weeks, because I won also Budapest… So I start to play very well in Monte-Carlo, I think. And so every week I play very, very well… and I want to continue like this,” Cecchinato said.

The Italian, currently No. 72 in the ATP Rankings, is expected to climb to a new career-high of No. 27 when the new rankings are released on Monday. He has his eyes set on even more elusive territory.

“For me, it is very important today, because I [was] playing against Dominic. So I need more work [to get to] Top 10 or Top 20, so these matches are very important for me,” Cecchinato said. “I think it’s possible to compete every day, I think, because every match I played very well against Top 10, Top 20, Top 30. So now I think positive and maybe I can go also Top 20.”

No doubles team has been as dominant as Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic in 2018. The Austrian-Croatian tandem has already won four tour-level titles out of six finals, soaring to No. 1 (Pavic) and No. 2 (Marach) in the ATP Doubles Rankings.

And on Saturday, they will have a chance to earn their second Grand Slam championship of the season, after defeating No. 12 seeds Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez 6-4, 7-5 in the Roland Garros semi-finals. The second seeds broke three times to advance after one hour, 32 minutes.

Marach and Pavic now have 36 match wins as a team this season. The pair has gained a sizeable lead in the ATP Doubles Race To London, guaranteeing that regardless of the result in the final, they will sit in first by at least 1,295 points.

It appeared that Marach and Pavic would need to win their third consecutive three-setter, as the Spaniards broke for a 5-3 lead in the second set. But the favourites strung together the final four games of the match, breaking twice and losing just one point on serve, to advance to the final on the Parisian terre battue.

The championship match will be a difficult one, as Marach and Pavic look to beat home favourites Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut. Less than four months ago, the Frenchmen ended Marach and Pavic’s 17-0 start to the campaign in the final of the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament.

Herbert and Mahut have won both of their FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against their final opponents, and are seeking their third Grand Slam trophy (2015 US Open, 2016 Wimbledon). Marach and Pavic, on the other hand, are the reigning Australian Open titlists.

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[1] Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs. [6] Juan Martin del Potro (ESP)
FedEx ATP Head2Head: Nadal leads Del Potro 9-5

Ten-time Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin del Potro, playing some of the best tennis of his career in 2018, will square off in a blockbuster semi-final in south-west Paris on Friday.

While Nadal has a 9-5 lead against Del Potro in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, the pair has met only twice before on clay courts. In their two completed red dirt matches, Nadal beat Del Potro 7-5, 6-3, 6-2 at the Paris major in 2007 and 1-6, 6-4, 6-1, 7-6(0) in the 2011 Davis Cup final. Nadal also won their last clash in the 2017 US Open semi-finals 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2.

Nadal, who celebrated his 32nd birthday on 3 June, is looking to secure a place in his 23rd Grand Slam championship final (16-7), while Del Potro, free from the wrist injuries that have hindered his progress for the past eight years, attempts to reach his second major final and add to his 2009 US Open crown (d. Federer).

View FedEx ATP Head2Head for the Roland Garros semi-finals & vote for who you think will win! 
Nadal vs Del Potro | Thiem vs Cecchinato

Read Roland-Garros Semi-Final Reports
Nadal Charges Past Schwartzman After Rain
Delpo Makes Emotional Return To SFs

Beating Nadal on clay is one of the sport’s hardest propositions and at Roland Garros, where he has won an astonishing 84 matches, only two players — Robin Soderling in the 2009 fourth round and Novak Djokovic in the 2015 quarter-finals — have got the better of the Spanish superstar over five sets. Over the course of his 16-season pro career, Nadal is 108-2 in best-of-five-set matches on clay.

So far in 2018, Nadal has put together a 28-2 match record (24-1 on clay courts). During the spring European clay-court swing the left-hander has picked up 11th titles at both the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters (d. Nishikori) and the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell (d. Tsitipsas), in addition to an eighth trophy at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia (d. A. Zverev). His lone defeat on red dirt came against Dominic Thiem in the Mutua Madrid Open quarter-finals.

The 29-year-old Del Potro, who will be contesting his fifth Grand Slam championship semi-finals, has so far produced one of the best seasons of his career (28-6 match record). He has won two trophies at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC (d. Anderson) and his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophy at the BNP Paribas Open (d. Federer) during a 15-match winning streak. The Argentine has also finished as runner-up at the ASB Classic (l. to Bautista Agut) in the second week of the year, which heralded his return to the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings.

Already assured of a place in the world’s Top 4 on Monday with his semi-final run, Del Potro is hoping to follow in the footsteps of his Argentine compatriots — Guillermo Vilas (1975, 1977-78, 1982), Gaston Gaudio (2004), Guillermo Coria (2004) and Mariano Puerta (2005) — by reaching Sunday’s Roland Garros final.

Nadal has spent marginally more time on the show courts at Roland Garros (13 hours, 10 minutes), while Del Potro has spent 12 hours and 59 minutes on court in his five victories.