Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - June 6, 2023 Czech Republic's Karolina Muchova in action during her quarter final match against Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
PARIS (Reuters) -Karolina Muchova stopped resurgent former French Open runner-up Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in her tracks with a 7-5 6-2 victory on Tuesday to march into the Roland Garros semi-finals for the first time in her career.
In the last four, Czech Republic's Muchova will play second seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus who beat Ukrainian former world number three Elina Svitolina in straight sets in the other quarter-final later in the day.
"She's very, very great player," Muchova told reporters later. "Very aggressive. Tough match ahead.
"I'll try to do my best to find a way how to make it complicated for her."
Muchova has largely flown under the radar in Paris this year after she stunned eighth seed Maria Sakkari in the opening round and the unseeded 26-year-old began brightly in front of a sparse Court Philippe Chatrier crowd with an early break.
But Pavlyuchenkova, who has fallen to 333 in the world after a knee injury kept her out of action for seven months last year, stayed within touching distance with a tight hold and sprung to life in the next game to draw level at 3-3.
After the pair exchanged breaks again, Muchova pinned her 31-year-old Russian opponent back with some deep groundstrokes to bag the opening set without fuss and made early inroads in the next as Pavlyuchenkova faded under the midday sun.
Muchova appeared more comfortable in the second set and built a commanding 5-1 lead before Pavlyuchenkova showed some signs of resistance.
But there was no comeback on the cards as Muchova closed out the match on serve and celebrated the win in a muted manner when Pavlyuchenkova fired a shot wide.
"I'm really happy with the semi-finals, so it's not like I'm just like, whatever. It's a great result for me, so I appreciate it a lot," said Muchova, who also reached the Australian Open last four in 2021.
"Of course, I'm still in the tournament so I'm trying to focus on another match and the tournament starts here.
"So that's probably why I look calm. But I'm super pleased with the way this tournament is going."
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in ParisEditing by Christian Radnedge and Christian Radnedge)
