NOVAK DJOKOVIC & DOM THIEM BOTH SURVIVE CLOSE CALLS — FOR DIFFERENT REASONS — IN THE 2016 FRENCH OPEN TENNIS

Written by: Staff on 2nd June 2016

French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros

NOVAK DJOKOVIC & DOM THIEM BOTH SURVIVE CLOSE CALLS -- FOR DIFFERENT REASONS -- IN THE 2016 FRENCH OPEN TENNIS

epa05342138 Novak Djokovic of Serbia celebrates with a ball boy winning against Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic during their men's single quarter final match at the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 02 June 2016. EPA/ROBERT GHEMENT |

By Ricky Dimon

Novak Djokovic came dangerously close to exiting the French Open on Thursday–but not because of anything quarterfinal opponent Tomas Berdych did. Instead, Djokovic was probably saved by the ninja-like moves of an alert linesman.

After failing to capitalize on a break-point opportunity at 1-0 in the third set, Djokovic flung his racket behind him. It went straight for the linesman who had the task of watching the sideline to Djokovic’s left. Had he failed to move out of the way, the racket certainly would have crashed right into him–possibly resulting in a disqualification of the top-seeded Serb.

“I threw a racket on the ground and it slipped and almost hit the line umpire,” Djokovic reflected. “I was lucky there. That’s all.”

“I mean, if he would (have) hit the [linesman], it would be over,” Berdych commented. “If not, then it’s just a broken racket. That’s it. Simple warning. Simple as that.”

It ended up being nothing more than a close call–not even a broken racket, as Berdych suggested–and the world No. 1 eventually finished off the eighth-ranked Czech 6-3, 7-5, 6-3. He will face Dominic Thiem during semifinal action on Friday.

But it was almost David Goffin instead of Thiem. Goffin was one point away from taking a two-set lead over the Austrian and the Belgian had complete control of the aforementioned point. But Thiem somehow managed to survive a grueling rally at 6-7 in the tiebreaker and that proved to be the decisive turning point of the match.

Dominic Thiem of Austria in action against David Goffin of Belgium during their men’s single quarter final match at the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 02 June 2016. EPA/Caroline Blumberg

The 22-year-old won the next two points to steal the second set and with momentum suddenly in hand, he was off to the races. Thiem eventually prevailed 4-6, 7-6(7), 6-4, 6-1 to punch a ticket to a major semifinal for the first time in his career.

“Honestly in the second set, in the whole second set, I didn’t really think that I’m going to win this match, because he was just on top of me,” Thiem said of Goffin. “He was the better player the first two sets maybe, or until the tiebreak. I didn’t know what to do because he was returning well. He didn’t do any mistakes. Then I think the tiebreak was one of the highest level I was ever playing. Then things kind of turned around. But, yeah, I doubted when I would go 2-0 sets down that I would have won the match.”

“I don’t regret it,” Goffin explained. “No. I came to the net. He defended well and he played a good shot afterwards. But I had an opportunity at that moment.”