Key events
Preamble
Salut! And welcome to Roland-Garros 2023 – day 12!
I like these calm little moments before the storm. It reminds me of Beethoven. Can you hear it? It’s like, when you put your head to the grass. You can hear it growing. You can hear the insects, bzzzz … Do you like Beethoven?
So said Norman Stansfield in Léon and, though he wasn’t talking about our women’s semi-final matches – probably – he might’ve been. Because on the face of things, there’s no tension here as we know exactly what’s going to happen: Aryna Sabaklenka blazes through Karolína Muchová and Iga Swiatek devastates Beatriz Haddad Maia – the kind of light work best soundtracked by Mozart – then the two winners convene on Saturday for an absolute Brahms of a final.
But sport – and women’s tennis in particular – tend not to work that way. After a miserable time with injury, Muchová will feel that her time is now, and knows that not long ago, Sabalenka was a fragile thwacker liable to falter under pressure. If she plays to her maximum, she’ll fancy her chances of reminding her reborn opponent exactly who she used used to be.
Haddad Maia is a not dissimilar tiguela de moqueca, a powerful hitter with hands and belief at her physical peak. It’s difficult to discomfit Swiatek, especially on clay, but the Brazilian is here because she’s hit purple patches in each of her last two matches, and she can find that level today, she’s a problem.
Most likely, of course, the favourites do enough – though neither has been seriously tested in reaching this stage. Swiatek, the defending champion, the reigning US Open champion and the world No 1, is a generational talent with disquieting equanimity and no weaknesses. Real talk, she seems impregnable on clay … except Sabalenka is in majestically murderous form, assaulting the ball like it just called her mum a rude word and fortified, since winning the Australian Open, with all the confidence that eluded her in the years prior to that.
Or, put another way, this going to be good … and what comes next might be even better. On y va!
Play: 3pm local, 2pm BST