This won’t be a repeat of 2020. For the first three games of the second set, it appeared this latest French Open summit between Nadal and Djokovic might be a Nadal romp like their 2020 final in Roland Garros.
When I exchanged messages with the veteran coach Darren Cahill before this quarterfinal, he pointed to Nadal’s down-the-line forehand as one of the keys to this tussle. It allows the left-handed Nadal to avoid Djokovic’s formidable backhand defenses and to unlock a long rally with a sudden injection of pace. It worked like a charm in the early going and, as in the first set, Nadal took a two-break lead, but that pace proved unsustainable on this occasion.