Djokovic in the 10th Open de France

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This certainly helped that Djokovic, ranked first, did not yet need to face a sown enemy. That will change now: he faces number 5 Alexander Zverev for a place in the semifinals.

Have things been too easy so far? Is it possible that Djokovic did not have the proper preparation for what could be more difficult in the last part of the tournament?

"Frankly, I do not mind navigating," he says with a smile. "I have a lot of experience, I think, in situations where you are facing critical points or tensions." I played a lot, I think, in tight matches of my career , on which I can count. "

He added: "It's good to be tested from this point of view, but at the same time, it's also good to navigate and conserve energy for what's going to happen."

Djokovic and Zverev shared four previous meetings.

Zverev reached his second quarter-final in Paris on the return to eliminate No. 9 Fabio Fognini 3 at 6, 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (5).

He is only 22 years old, but Zverev is considered a future champion for quite some time. He has not yet played in a major semifinal and said Monday that he liked being a little under-radar so far in this Open de France, noting that Stefanos Tsitsipas, aged 20-year-old sixth seeded was a subject. more concentrated until losing in the fourth round against Stan Wawrinka.

"For me," said Zverev, "it was actually a nice thing that all the attention … is only heading towards my path."

Unlike Djokovic, he did not have exactly an easy way to qualify for the knockout stages: Zverev had to win twice five scorers and four against Fognini.

Japan's Kei Nishikori won his eighth straight game in five sets on Monday, beating Benoit Paire 6-2, 6-7 (8), 6-2, 6-7 (8), 7-5 over two days. and set up a quarterfinal match against defending champion Nadal.

In a match sown with non-forced mistakes involving 15 interruptions of service but also beautiful strikes, Nishikori is imposed after a battle of nearly four hours. Their fourth-round match was suspended Sunday as Nishikori led two sets against one.

Nishikori extended his impressive record in five sets to 23-6, including a 6-1 score in the clay grand slam. He also holds the highest winning percentage in the deciding sets (132-45, .746) – whether in the Best of Five or Best of Three – since the start of the 1968 Open.

In wet conditions, the all-risk tennis pair worked on his return to the field. The Frenchman saved two match points in the tie break in the fourth set and served the match at 5-3, but he was eventually led to regret his mistakes.

"He was serving for the match and I just tried to play one point at a time," said Nishikori.

Pair scored 15 double faults and 79 non-forced faults.

"Never easy to finish a match," said Paire. "It was emotionally difficult, I am very sad to lose this game, but happy with what I did this week."

Nishikori will play his third quarter-final match in Paris, but will face a tough challenge in the next round. Nadal has won 10 of their previous 12 games, including three clay courts.

Last year's finalist, Dominic Thiem, put an end to French hopes of winning the Roland Garros glory by eliminating Gael Monfils, the last remaining Frenchman in the table, 6-4, 6-4 and 6-2 .

Monfils had not dropped a set in his previous three games, but had not found an answer to his opponent's consistency. Thiem produced a superb winner in the third set when, after being dragged to the net, he made a setback to the baseline and pulled a winner between his legs.

"He was just stronger, he impressed me so much today," said Monfils.