10 Things to Know, Day 11: Last spots in semifinals are up for grabs

Trivia: There’s only one Roland Garros junior champion left in either the men’s or women’s singles field here—who is it?

The last spots in the semifinals are up for grabs. The last four quarterfinals—two men’s, two women’s—are on Chatrier today, including Novak Djokovic’s rematch against Pablo Carreno Busta.

It’s been 31 days since Djokovic was defaulted at the US Open against Carreno Busta. Since the default, the Serb has gone 9-0—and 22-1 in sets—and he faces the Spaniard again today.

Djokovic’s No. 1 ranking was locked in before the tournament started, and now Rafael Nadal’s No. 2 ranking is safe too. Dominic Thiem was the only player threatening Nadal at No. 2, but he needed the title.

Who isn't safe? Anyone who plays Nadal from here on. Once Nadal gets past the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, which he did Tuesday night, he’s 24-0—that’s 12-0 in semifinals and 12-0 in finals.

Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev just played each other 10 days ago. While first-round action was already underway here during the “Sunday Start” on September 27, these two were battling it out in the final of the last lead-up event in Hamburg—Rublev rallied from 5-3 down in the third set to win, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.

Two days later, Tsitsipas and Rublev scored their first career comebacks from two sets to love down in their first-round matches here. Tsitsipas beat Jaume Munar, 4-6, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4, while Rublev actually came back from two sets and 5-2 down in the third to beat Sam Querrey, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (4), 7-5, 6-4, 6-3.

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Rublev’s 3-5 against Top 10 players at majors. He hasn’t played a Top 10 player at Roland Garros, though—he’s actually never even played a Top 40 player here. All three wins came at the US Open.

Petra Kvitova’s opponent, Laura Siegemund, has a lot of big wins on clay. The German has scored 11 of her 14 career Top 20 wins on clay—10 on red, one on green. Kvitova is currently ranked No. 11.

Sofia Kenin’s never won a set against Collins. In their only tour-level meeting, Collins crushed Kenin in Adelaide this year, 6-3, 6-1, which was Kenin’s last match before winning the Australian Open. The two also played twice before at ITF events, with Collins winning both of those in straight sets, too.

Collins just brought on a coach who knows a thing or two about doing well on the terre battue. She just started working with Nicolas Almagro, a former No. 9 on the ATP rankings who reached three of his four career Grand Slam quarterfinals at Roland Garros (one at the Australian Open).

Yesterday’s Trivia: Nadal played David Ferrer in the quarterfinals of his Roland Garros debut in 2005.