Despite the huge names on court, Day 11 started out as a bit of a dud. Rafael Nadal, who has toyed with the competition over the past week-and-a-half, moved into the French Open semis swiftly when Pablo Carreno Busta—down 6-3, 2-0—retired with an abdominal injury.
The highly-anticipated Novak Djokovic-Dominic Thiem match started out with a bang. They played a 73-minute first set in which Djokovic failed to convert two set points. Thiem stole the set, and it was all him from that point forward. He lost just three games the rest of the way to end Djokovic’s title defense and move into the French Open semis for the second year in a row.
Then came the women’s quarterfinals—and that’s when the real drama settled in.
Simona Halep, picked by many to win her first Slam this week, squared off against Elina Svitolina, who came into the match as arguably the best player on tour in 2017. It started out stress-free, as the Ukrainian rattled off five straight games to begin the match. Third-seeded Halep won the next three to make the scoreline respectable, but Svitolina wrapped it up 6-3 in rather routine fashion.
The fifth-seeded underdog had one foot into the semis in the second set after racing to a 5-1 lead, and it looked all but over before the 2014 runner-up at this tournament began to chip away. Halep managed to take five straight games to grab a 6-5 lead before Svitolina won the 12th of the set to force a tiebreaker. Four set points for Halep wasted and a match point for Svitolina later, Halep had the set, 7-6 (6), and a clear opportunity for an improbable comeback suddenly presented itself.