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Tennis: Italian cooking upsets Djokovic at French

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It was difficult to discern which was less likely: that 12-time major champion Novak Djokovic would falter in his French Open quarterfinal or that Marco Cecchinato, who never won a Grand Slam match until last week and once faced a possible ban for losing on purpose, would rise to the occasion.

Either way, Tuesday’s outcome was stunning.

Djokovic, bothered by neck and leg problems, went from two sets down to the verge of forcing a fifth, but he frittered away good chances and in the end was beaten by the 72nd-ranked Cecchinato 6-3, 7-6 (4), 1-6, 7-6 (11) in a rollicking match filled with engaging exchanges and plenty of drama.

“A hard one to swallow,” a glum Djokovic acknowledged during a brief news conference, in which he delivered clipped answers and said he might not play during the upcoming grass-court season.

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Cecchinato is the lowest-ranked French Open semifinalist in 19 years and the first Italian man to make it that far at any major in 40 years.

“I had a lot of courage, especially toward the end of the tiebreaker,” Cecchinato said. “I was cool. Clear-headed. My heart was beating 1,000 mph. It wasn’t easy. My hand was even shaking a little.”

Cecchinato (pronounced cheh-key-NAH-toe) came through on his fourth match point, looping in a backhand return winner as Djokovic tried to surprise him with a serve-and-volley attempt.

The 25-year-old Cecchinato dropped onto his back on the clay, then sat in his sideline chair, bowed his head and cried.

Consider that Cecchinato has never won a tour-level match on a surface other than red clay; as it is, he entered this season with a career record of 4-23 and entered this tournament with a Grand Slam record of 0-4.

Then there’s this: The 25-year-old from Sicily was suspended for 18 months and fined 40,000 euros (about $45,000) by his national federation in July 2016 for allegedly fixing a match by losing at a lower-tier Challenger event in Morocco a year earlier. Cecchinato appealed and, eventually, the Italian Olympic Committee announced that the sanctions were dropped on a technicality. He has declined to discuss the case in Paris.

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On Friday, Cecchinato will face No. 7 seed Dominic Thiem of Austria, who made it to his third consecutive French Open semifinal by beating No. 2 Alexander Zverev of Germany 6-4, 6-2, 6-1.

Zverev was coming off a trio of wins that went five sets and, though still just 21, could not will his body to another comeback.

“He’s one of the fittest guys on tour,” Thiem said, “and even for him, it’s maybe even a little bit too tough to play three five-setters.”

In the women’s quarterfinals, No. 10 Sloane Stephens beat No. 14 Daria Kasatkina of Russia 6-3, 6-1, and No. 13 Madison Keys eliminated unseeded Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 7-6 (5), 6-4. Stephens beat Keys in the U.S. Open final last September, and Thursday’s rematch will be the first all-American women’s semifinal at the French Open since Serena Williams defeated Jennifer Capriati in 2002.

Featured matches

Quarterfinal matches Wednesday at the French Open:

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No. 1 Rafael Nadal vs. No. 11 Diego Schwartzman

No. 3 Marin Cilic vs. No. 5 Juan Martin del Potro

WOMEN

No. 1 Simona Halep vs. No. 12 Angelique Kerber

No. 3 Garbine Muguruza vs. No. 28 Maria Sharapova

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