It was uncomfortable and it cost him his run of winning 36 sets in succession at the French Open, but Rafael Nadal has lived up to his half of the deal. The 13-time French Open champion responded to a typically thorough examination from Diego Schwartzman by devastating him, beating the Argentinian 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 to reach the 14th semi-final of his career. He now awaits a 58th encounter with Novak Djokovic.

Even though Nadal had reached the second week without dropping a set, the discomfort was no surprise. Rarely does Schwartzman step on court to play Nadal without inflicting a measure of pain in the long, physical rallies that follow. He always leaves a mark, none greater than when he beat Nadal on clay at the Italian Open last year after the Spaniard returned from his extended pandemic hiatus.

on Wednesday Nadal breezed through a simple first set but Schwartzman started the second determined to remain on top of the baseline. He fought his way forward and took the ball early whenever he could, eviscerating groundstrokes off both wings but also eagerly finishing points at the net and producing more than a couple of beautiful lobs.

While Nadal has reached the semi-finals without major problems, there have been some flaws. He has served at such a high level in recent years, but his delivery has not been great since his back injury earlier in 2021. There have been times, whether in this match or earlier in the tournament, that he has completely lost rhythm on his forehand.

Those issues all converged against a player full of belief in his ability to effect the match. Schwartzman broke serve early with a tremendous inside-out forehand return to seal the game. When he was immediately pegged back to 3-3 he did not panic, piecing together two holds of serve, both finished with vicious forehand winners.

The pressure he inflicted eventually told, with Nadal producing an error-laden service game at 4-5. On Schwartzman’s first set point, Nadal played a poor drop shot and shanked his passing shot into the stands.

The match had shifted entirely by the third set. Schwartzman held all the momentum and he handled it well, breezing through his own service games as Nadal twice had to dig himself out of 15-30 holes. By now Schwartzman was playing his best tennis of the match, winning 11 service points in a row to establish a 4-3 lead. He did everything he could and challenged Nadal to keep up.

It is a reflection of Nadal’s greatness that this was the totality of Schwartzman’s impact. In the most dangerous moment of the match, Nadal’s level skyrocketed and he produced his cleanest passage of tennis. At 30-0, he crushed a forehand winner and pumped his fists to the sky. With the match level at 4-4 and one set all, he finally found enough consistent forehand depth to push Schwartzman behind the baseline. Nadal broke serve by eliciting two backhand errors and one short backhand from Schwartzman through his relentless pressure.

And that was all. Schwartzman played a wonderful match but from 4-3 in the third he won only six points on serve until the end. Nadal took the final nine games in a flurry of forehand winners and there was little Schwartzman could do.

“Well done for him, he’s a great player, so [it] should be a tough match,” said Nadal afterwards. “I needed to play a little bit more aggressively and I think I did it a bit later, so very happy for that.”

Nadal’s record at Roland Garros is now 105 wins and two defeats and he is two matches away from his 14th title. Every time he has reached this stage, he has won. Here he is, at 35 years old, still tournament favourite and still giving himself the best chance of triumphing again.

Meanwhile, Nick Kyrgios has pulled out of the Queen’s Club tournament with a neck problem.