Courier, Henman expect a Nadal-Djokovic final

Argentina’s Schwartzman, who had never made it past the quarter-finals at any slam prior to this fortnight, faces Nadal, the 12-time champion, trying to win his 20th Grand Slam title, which would see him tie Roger Federer's men's all-time record.

“There’s a huge piece of history on the line for both Novak and Rafa,” said Jim Courier, twice the champion at Roland-Garros, who is working for the Tennis Channel on this year’s event.

“They’re most likely to win it – not that they are guaranteed to – but one of them is certainly the oddsmakers’ favourite. The two of them against the two challengers, we all expect Rafa or Novak to win don’t we? Of course we do. That’s a two-slam swing when it’s all said and done between those two players.”

Djokovic takes on Tsitsipas for the sixth time, leading their head to head battles 3-2, including their only meeting on clay, in Madrid last year. The Serb cruised through his first four rounds and despite struggling with a neck issue in the quarter-final, was too good for Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain, winning in four sets.

“Mentally, he has shown he’s tough enough to overcome physical challenges and he did it again,” Courier said of Djokovic. “We know how tough he is. He’ll find a way to make it competitive out there.”

Tim Henman, the former world No.4 and semi-finalist at Roland-Garros in 2004, who is working for Eurosport throughout this year’s event, agreed.

“That’s what I think some people fail to realise sometimes in a sport like tennis, it’s not about playing perfect tennis, it’s just about being better than one player on a given day. Djokovic is so good at that,” said Henman.

Nadal and Schwartzman will be first on court on Friday. He’s won all 12 of his Roland-Garros semi-finals and he leads Schwartzman 9-1 in their head-to-head meetings.

But Schwartzman, in his first Grand Slam semi-final, has hope, thanks to his stunning victory over Nadal just a few weeks ago in Rome.

“From both standpoints, they’ll come to the court knowing that Diego can beat him,” Courier said. “That’s knowledge they didn’t have before Rome.

“Best-of-five increases the degree of difficulty for a repeat of that performance. And also the fact that Rafa has now won five matches and played wonderfully in all of them, and has more momentum than he had in Rome when he was searching for his game. But that win is a really important win for both of them to know that possibility.”

Conditions have not been to Nadal’s liking here this year, the cooler autumnal weather not allowing his heavy topspin forehand to leap up above players’ heads and make their life even more difficult.

But Courier said Schwartzman may still find things tough.

“I was doing the numbers with our friends at Hawk-Eye earlier today and he likes to take his backhand right at about three feet mark, that’s his average contact point in this tournament, that’s where he likes it,” the American said.

“While Rafa’s ball isn’t bouncing as high as it normally would this year, because of the weather and the balls being a little heavier, it still bounces up near five feet, at its apex, if you let it get there. So he’s going to have to work hard if he wants to be aggressive on the backhand, or he’s going to have to jump up and hit that two-hander.”

Tsitsipas, meanwhile, has the unenviable task of trying to become the first man in 2020 to beat Djokovic, in a completed match.

The Greek looked hugely impressive in beating Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals, showing the kind of versatility he will need against Djokovic.

“He’s going to come forward (but) he’s got to come in behind the right ball,” Henman said. “I think variation is important, you’ve got to be able to change the spins, change the depth of the ball against Djokovic and you’ve definitely got to take a few risks. He has that skill-set, but it’s very difficult to deliver in those conditions over five sets against one of the best players that’s ever played the game.”

No one has beaten Nadal in a Roland-Garros semi-final (he’s only lost two matches overall) and Djokovic looks like a man on a mission.

Henman said he believes we’ll see “the final everyone wants to see” and Courier agrees. “As much as I like the youngsters relatively come and bring it to it, I love to see this history while we still have the chance,” he said.