French Open: Out with the old and in with the new as young blood reigns supreme in women's singles

For much of the last 10 days the talk here at the French Open has centred on the return of Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, two of the biggest names of the last decade and more, but from now onwards the women’s competition will focus on a younger generation of players.

Williams withdrew from the tournament on Monday with an injury, while Sharapova and Angelique Kerber, the last two thirty-somethings in the draw, both went out in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. Sharapova lost 6-2, 6-1 to Garbine Muguruza, while Kerber was beaten 6-7, 6-3, 6-2 by Simona Halep.

Thursday’s semi-finals have a distinctly youthful feel. Muguruza, aged 24, will take on 26-year-old Halep in a match which will decide who will finish the tournament as world No 1, while 25-year-old Sloane Stephens will meet her friend and fellow American, 23-year-old Madison Keys.

Sharapova, the champion here in 2012 and 2014, had won all three of her previous meetings with Muguruza, who won the title in 2016, but was rarely in contention on this occasion. The 31-year-old Russian had her serve broken six times in the match and had no answer to her opponent’s power and aggression.

“She did a lot of things better than I did,” Sharapova said afterwards. “I think she was the aggressive one. She had a lot more depth in the ball. I think my shots were a lot more forced. She served a lot better than I did. I gave her too many looks on second serves. She’s a great returner.”

Muguruza said that being aggressive was a key part of her game. “When you're facing somebody that also has an aggressive style of game, I think it's about who takes the command, who takes the first opportunity,” the Spaniard said. “I think it was a little bit of that today.

The first three games took 21 minutes but featured two breaks of serve by Muguruza, who went on to take a 4-0 lead. Sharapova finally held serve at the third attempt, but Muguruza was winning her own service games with plenty to spare. The Spaniard created two set points at 5-2 with a backhand winner down the line and converted the second of them when she pressured her opponent into a backhand error.

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Sharapova failed to hold her serve at all in the second set, winning her only game when she broke Muguruza to love to level at 1-1. At 1-5 Sharapova went 15-40 down, upon which Muguruza converted her first match point when the Russian netted a backhand under pressure from the quality of her opponent’s return.

Although Sharapova thought she had been taking steps in the right direction with her results in recent weeks, she added: “Today was certainly not one of those steps.”

Sharapova was asked about Serena Williams’ comment that the Russian’s autobiography, which was released last year, was “100 per cent hearsay”. Sharapova replied: “When you're writing an autobiography, I don't think there is any reason to write anything that's not true.”

Kerber and Halep have had some major battles down the years, including a remarkable match in the semi-finals of the Australian Open five months ago, when the Romanian saved match points and won the deciding set 9-7.

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Halep, going for too many big shots, made a poor start this time and went 4-0 down in the first set before changing to a more cautious style, hitting the ball with more spin. The world No 1 managed to force a tie-break but lost it 7-2 after making a succession of mistakes.

After breaking serve in the opening game of the second set Halep never looked back. Kerber had treatment for a blister on her left foot in the third set and the end was comparatively swift as the German was broken for the eighth time after making three successive errors.

“It was a tough start,” Halep said afterwards. “I think I missed too much. I wanted actually to do too much in the match. It was tough because her ball is very low and you don't have many chances to finish the points from there.”

Muguruza, who was briefly world No 1 last year, said she did not regard herself as the favourite to beat Halep, who has lost three of their four previous meetings.

“She’s played better than I have this year,” Muguruza said. “She loves clay. She loves Roland Garros. She’s shown it. But it’s a great match, a great semi-final.”