Daria Kasatkina books Roland Garros semifinal over Kudermetova

The first quarterfinal of the day saw Kasatkina defeat compatriot Kudermetova 6-4 7-6(4) to advance to her maiden Roland Garros semifinal.

It was a fairly solid clash with both players playing some strong tennis at times but overall the more consistent player in this match and the overall event was Kasatkina. That is the only reason she won because she did not outplay Kudermetova that drastically during most of the match. But the consistency allowed her to commit far fewer errors and play with a more stable baseline level.

Kudermetova was too much up and down the entire match, especially in the 2nd set where she was a bit unlucky to be fair. In the first set, Kudermeova attacked all of the time and hit 12 winners which was ten more than Kasatkina (2). But she also had 10 more mistakes 22 compared to 12 and some of them proved very costly at times.

Losing the set was disappointing because she was up 3-1 early. The 2nd set saw Kasatkina jump out to a lead a couple of times with Kudermetova battling back each time. Kudermetova had a huge hold at 5-5 being down 15-40 in the game but winning it in the end. We went into the tiebreak where Kudermeova slammed a couple of balls wide giving her opponent a 5-0 lead.

She was 6-1 then down 6-1 but battled back all the way to 6-5 with her serve as well. It was a long rally but a drop shot sealed it in the end for the French Open semifinal.