Zidansek Makes History, Becomes The First Slovenian To Reach The Roland Garros Semifinals

Tamara Zidansek (Instagram @tamarazidansek997)

JAKARTA - Unseeded tennis player Tamara Zidansek won over Paula Badosa 7-5, 4-6, 8-6 in the French Open quarter-finals, Tuesday. With that result, Zidansek became the first Slovenian woman to reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam.

His two previous appearances at Roland Garros resulted in first-half defeats for Zidansek, but after beating former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu in the opening round, she has shown significant progress on Roland Garros clay.

"Of course the game was a great opportunity for us to get into the semi-finals. But I think I managed to keep my composure today and played a little bit better than him. But still, it was a tough game to go through," Zidansek revealed, Reuters reported Among.

Starting the game, Zidansek fell behind and lost his opening two serve games, but he took control of the game and started dictating with his accurate forehands.

Entering the second set, Zidansek had a 4-2 lead but Badosa attacked tightly and won six games in a row to equalize to enter the decider.

Both players struggled to overcome their tensions at various points during the third set. But Badosa's game dropped to a double error and trailed 15-40.

Zidansek squandered the first match point but struck another forehand to end the match with a 48th winner.

Zidansek will face experienced Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in Thursday's semifinals.

The other two women's quarter-finals, featuring defending champion Iga Swiatek against Maria Sakkari and American teenager Coco Gauff against Barbora Krejcikova, take place on Wednesday.