All eyes were on a potential meeting between US Open champion Alcaraz of Spain and Djokovic of Serbia, who is aiming to become the first man to win all four Grand Slams at least three times, when the draw pitted them in the same section and now it has come to pass.

Alcaraz swept past Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets in the night session match, although suffered a slight wobble in the third set, and had to rely on a tie-break to get the job done in straight sets.

A bewildered Tsitsipas lost the first two sets 6-2, 6-1 in just over an hour but fought hard in the third which Alcaraz took 7-6.

Earlier in the day, Djokovic dropped his first set of the tournament in a four-set win over Karen Khachanov, playing as a neutral.

Khachanov took the first set 6-4, and gave third seed Djokovic something to think about when he took him into a second set tie-break, which Djokovic raced through seven points to zero to restore parity on the scoreboard.

Djokovic took the next two sets 6-2 and 6-4 to set up a showdown with Alcaraz on Friday (June 8).

In today’s opening women’s singles quarter-finals, there was drama on and off the court between Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina and Aryna Sabalenka, playing as a neutral.

Off the court, a spectator supporting Svitolina, identified only as Anna, had a Ukrainian flag cut in half because the French Tennis Federation claimed it was more than one metre in length, the maximum size allowed at the site, as reported by Reuters.

On the court, second seed Sabalenka won 6-4, 6-4 in a tense match, in which the players exchanged breaks in the second set before Sabalenka got the decisive break in the fifth game.

At the end, Svitolina was booed off for not shaking hands with her opponent at the end, a position she has consistently adopted against players from Russia and Belarus since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.

Sabalenka will face Karolína Muchová in the last four, after the world number 19 from the Czech Republic reached a second Grand Slam semi-final with a straight sets win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, playing as a neutral.

Muchova edged a first set featuring five breaks of serve 7-5, before taking control in the second to win it 6-2, and knock out the 2021 women’s singles runner-up in the process.

Elsewhere at Roland Garros, action got underway in the wheelchair competitions today, with women’s singles top seed Diede de Groot winning her 100^th consecutive match by beating French wildcard Emmanuelle Morch 6-2, 6-2.

Dutch star de Groot, the reigning women’s singles and doubles wheelchair tennis Paralympic champion, was presented with a Paris Saint-Germain football shirt and commemorative plaque by tournament director Amelie Mauresmo on court after her match, in recognition of the milestone.