The quarterfinals in the Men’s draw featured a highly anticipated match between two great champions who have combined for 22 major championships. The “undercard” was certainly worthy of anticipation as well. After all was said and done, two men advanced into the semifinals in Paris with less drama than some expected.

Djokovic crushes the “King of Clay”

Top-seeded Novak Djokovic ended his six-match losing streak to Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros in a big way. He cruised to a 7-5 6-3 6-1 victory.

It took very little time before Djokovic found his supreme shot-making. With a strategy to attack Nadal’s strength (his forehand), the Serb opened up the court on the backhand side. Djokovic was dominant, executing in every component of his game. Mixing drop shots with his aggressive baseline strikes, he placed Nadal on his heels and in an early deficit at 0-4. But it was in the fifth game where the Spaniard finally appeared to gain confidence and found depth on his groundstrokes. Placing some pressure on the Serb, he quickly evened the match at 4-4. However, despite clear frustration from losing a solid lead, Djokovic regrouped and broke Nadal late to take the set.

After an intense first set, the two champions settled in at the beginning of the second set, both strong on their service games. However, in the eighth game, Djokovic earned a break point and capitalized, which allowed him to serve out the set. Nadal’s fight to regain the break fell short, and he found himself in a massive hole.

Serving to open the third set, Nadal may have felt the enormity of the mountain he would need to climb and promptly dropped the first game. The Serb refused to dull his intensity, pushing around the nine-time champion on the surface that earned him the nickname “King of Clay.” A demoralized Nadal could find no answers against a player who is compiling one of the finer seasons on tour in some time. With huge strikes at all positions on the court, Djokovic placed an exclamation point on the afternoon by winning the set and match going away.

It was his first victory against Nadal at Roland Garros after losing six straight matches there. Asked about his impressive run of late, Djokovic responded, “Everything is coming together in my life, and I am experiencing probably the pinnacle of my career and of my life. I am a complete person. Very satisfied on and off the court. I think it all influences the results and my performances.” It has been a whirlwind year for the Serb, who married and became a father during this time.

Meanwhile, Nadal made clear that he had no plans to concede his history of success at Roland Garros permanently. “I'm going to come back next year, and I am going to try to be competitive, to try to be better prepared than this year,” he said.

A gracious Djokovic simply described Nadal as “still a champion.”

Murray rolls into semifinals

In a match featuring two men who have played well on clay, David Ferrer has historically been known for his abilities on the surface, but Andy Murray recently won titles at Munich and Madrid. However, this day belonged to Murray, who advanced 7-6 6-2 5-7 6-1.

In the first set, the Scot seemingly appeared on cruise control, but Ferrer made a late push, breaking Murray at love as he was serving for the set. Parlaying this late momentum, Ferrer regrouped from a 4-5 deficit to reach a first-set tiebreak.

However, in the tiebreak Murray sprinted out fast and racked up five set points. Finally, aided by a few costly errors off Ferrer’s racket, Murray closed it out and sealed the set.

Murray began to overpower Ferrer in the second set, and his big groundstrokes appeared to take a toll late. Looking fatigued at times, the Spaniard offered little resistance late in the set as Murray continued his strong play, winning the set comfortably.

However, just as it appeared the inevitable would set in for Ferrer, the 33-year-old summoned fresh energy and began to fight back. Down two sets, he would find inroads into Murray’s strong strikes and began to find success from his own. And after breaking twice, Ferrer would capture the set. The Paris crowd had witnessed Ferrer’s back-against-the-wall fight before and were clearly behind him as he attempted to battle back.

As play moved into the fourth set, Murray appeared unaffected from dropping the third. Keeping his poise and returning to the game plan that brought him early success in the match, he quickly regained control again. After racing out to a 5-0 lead, the only storyline left was whether Ferrer could avoid a bagel. A late service hold gave him his only game of the set as he fell to the two-time major champion in four.

The win sets up a semifinal clash against Djokovic on Friday. The Scot turned his attention to the world No. 1 afterwards, “My job is to forget about what's happened in the past (against Djokovic) and focus on that match,” he said. “I need to come up with the best game plan possible to win against him. He's obviously played great tennis. His win against Rafa in straight sets is obviously very impressive.”