French Open 2014 : Preview of the men's singles semifinals

This year’s French Open has seen a lot of upsets in both the men’s as well as the women’s draw. Title favourites Li Na and Serena Williams were shown the door early in the first week. On the men’s draw, Australian Open champion Stanislas Wawrinka couldn’t handle the pressure as he lost in the first round. Roger Federer lost in the fourth round to Ernests Gulbis.

Despite all these results, two men have made it to the semifinals with relative ease. Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, seeded No.1 and No. 2 respectively have lost just one set so far.

Rafael Nadal faces No.7 seed Andy Murray while Novak Djokovic takes on No. 18 seed Latvian Ernests Gulbis.

Rafael Nadal Vs Andy Murray

Nadal has a 14-5 win-loss record against Murray coming into this match, with the Spaniard winning all 5 matches on clay. Murray managed to take a set off Nadal when they last met in the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters recently. Murray will have to play aggressive tennis right from the start and hope for errors from Nadal, to have any chance of progressing to his first French Open final. Nadal has an impressive 63-1 record at Roland Garros and is looking to reach his 5^th consecutive final here.

Murray is one of the best returners in the game and Nadal will have to serve extremely well to keep Murray at bay. Murray will not look to extend rallies as Nadal is strong from the baseline, and the Spaniard will start to dictate the point. Nadal’s forehand has been lethal as always and Murray would be ill advised to drop anything short to Rafa’s forehand.

Murray will have to capitalise on Rafa’s second serve which has lost its venom this season & create break point chances. It will be an uphill task for the brit to overhaul Rafa on his favourite hunting ground.

Novak Djokovic Vs Ernests Gulbis

The other semifinal will be an interesting one. Ernests Gulbis has taken out 2 top ten players in a row. He beat No.4 seed Roger Federer in the fourth round and accounted for No. 6 seed Tomas Berdych in the quarterfinals. Can he defeat No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic and advance to his first ever Grand Slam final?

If the Latvian can make fewer errors and serve really well, he has a slight chance. Novak has improved his clay court tennis tremendously over the last few years. This is his 4th consecutive French Open semifinal and 16th consecutive Grand Slam semifinal. Only Roger Federer is ahead of him with 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinal appearances.

The Serb has lost just one set so far and will to attack Gulbis’s serve right from the start. Novak played splendid tennis against big serving Canadian Milos Raonic and the Latvian knows that he should play extraordinary tennis to prevent Novak from reaching his second French Open final.

What makes it even more difficult for Gulbis is the fact that, Novak has not lost to a player outside the top 10 in a Grand Slam since the 2010 French Open, where he lost to No. 22 Austrian Jurgen Melzer after having a 2 set lead. Novak has a 4-1 win-loss record against the Latvian, with Gulbis’s only victory coming on the hard courts in Brisbane in 2009.

Will it be a No.1 Vs No. 2 final this year?

An exciting day in store for all the fans as the dust starts to settle on semifinals day.