Diana Shnaider stuns Aryna Sabalenka with incredible comeback win in wild and windy French Open quarter-final | Shnaider to Maja Chwalińska play in semis

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**John Silk** (0:30)
There was a great full hand winner there by the way, 30-40. So the third match point, is it going to be third time lucky for Diana Shnaider here to bagel Sabalenka in the third set and book her spot in the semi-finals? Back hand return from her. Back hand from Sabalenka goes into the net. Diana Shnaider wins. Three, six, seven, five, six, love. And what have we just seen? I just, just don't know. Listen, Shnaider played out of her mind from 4-1, 30 love down, double break deficit in the second set. She comes back to win three, six, seven, five, six, love. She wins 11 of the last 12 games. And she bagels the world number one in the deciding set. Two hours and 12 minutes. Everything is backwards right now. Sabalenka just is looking so annoyed with how that panned out. I didn't see it coming. I'm sure she didn't see it coming. I'm sure no one except maybe Diana Shnaider and maybe her coach Sasha Bayon saw it coming. But I'm also telling you now the conditions. I mean, it's two years now in a row that Sabalenka has been there in windy, breezy, blustery conditions in the French capital and just seen a stubborn opponent who's just not missing and on occasions hitting blistering winners that are painting lines on the other side of the net. Last year, it was Koko Goff. Today, it's Diana Shnaider. And Shnaider can't believe it. She's going to be speak now and tell us really exactly what she's feeling if she possibly could put it into words.
Victory belongs to the most tenacious indeed.
She's speechless, she says.
Tough conditions indeed.

**Diana Shnaider** (2:46)
Quarterfinals for the first time. So, I feel nervous, you know, and I feel like the first set, I was just kind of trying to adjust to her game, and then to the conditions, to the win.

**John Silk** (2:57)
Ten games in a row.

**Diana Shnaider** (3:01)
Yeah, I was just trying to focus point by point, like not thinking about the score. I was like, it's okay, it's tough conditions. I mean, she's world number one, so I will just try to do my best till the end, and we'll see how it goes. And I just fight for every point, like try to run for every ball, and make it.

**John Silk** (3:31)
Schneider before today had one top ten win in her career. She's now got two.

**Diana Shnaider** (3:34)
You're telling your career that you're beating a rating or a number one player, and in the first semi-final of the Grand Slam...

**John Silk** (3:44)
First time in a semi-final at a Grand Slam, Diana Schneider.
A prize for Diana Shnaider.
Even the wind is playing havoc with this interview, with the microphone and everything flying around...
So, this is our semifinal line up on the screen, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, listen, one of these two at the bottom of the screen will be licking their lips at the final. I would have thought, although maybe Diana Shnaider has her own ideas, or maybe Maja Chalińska, who was ranked outside the top 100 going into this tournament, has other ideas. And what an unlikely semifinal we now have between Diana Shnaider and Chalińska coming up for you tomorrow.
I'm just going to have a look at their head to head. I'm sure they've had a few interesting matches in interesting parts of the world, let's say that, and interesting levels of tennis. I'm going to get their head to head up for you up on the screen right now.
And look ahead to that semifinal. It's 1-0 for Diana Shnaider on the main tour. That win came in Istanbul, in Turkey, in 2022 And I think it was like a double, it's like an ITF, yeah, it's an ITF event in 2022, in April 2022 An ITF 21A, which honestly, I'm not even sure what that means. ITF 21A, I'm gonna see if I can fathom out what that means.
It's a low level ranking match, let's say, with not exactly a billion points on the table, unlike their upcoming clash at the semifinals tomorrow on the Parisian clay. Wow, I'm still getting my breath back from that previous encounter that Diana Shnaider dug really deep when she's 4-1 down, double-breaking the second set to win. Her path to the final has also been interesting and that's back-to-back matches now where Shnaider has got a bagel because she also bageled Madison Keys. So some Grand Slam winners, she's skittling over with bagels in the third set here. As you can see, three set wins over Keys now in Sabalenka. Before that, she beat Olyna Kova and Kessler and Zara Zua in straight sets. But when she goes into that fourth round clash and sees one set all with Madison Keys, you're thinking, okay, Keys will put power away, but Diana had other ideas winning at 6-0 in the third. And again today, winning 10 games in a row, Sabalenka serving for the match as well at 5-4, and she's up 15 love and she has chances, but she doesn't take them. Instead, it's Diana Shnaider who powers on through in a huge upset winning this match, 6-0 in the third. As for the semi-final against Chliwinska, well, Chliwinska as well has kind of shocked the tennis world en route to this semi-final. Beating Kim Wensheng in her opening match, that was a surprise that many of us didn't see coming. I didn't see it coming, that's for sure. She then matched exactly the same scoreline in a win over Elise Mertens. She comes from a 6-1 deficit to Maria Sakkari in the third round to prevail in three sets. How Maria Sakkari must be looking at this French Open thinking it was a missed opportunity to make a French Open final or Grand Slam final for the first time in her career. Then Chliwinska overcomes Diane Parry very impressively in straight sets before beating Kalinskaya. I think the conditions today for both Chliwinska and Diana Shnaider did benefit both of them in their matches. Kalinskaya was way off it and also seemed to be struggling a bit with the drop shots that Chliwinska was going to be playing. How will Diana Shnaider deal with those drop shots? I don't think she'll have as many problems as Kalinskaya did. She also probably won't break quite as many balls. And if she can hit with the unerring accuracy she had today being aggressive at just the right times, then you'd imagine that it will be a win for Diana Shnaider. But will she do that? How will the conditions be? The weather for tomorrow, I'm going to check it out right now, Paris weather. Let's see, we might have a few raindrops tomorrow. So we might be indoors on Thursday, the 4th of June. We might be indoors. And in fact, I would suggest we will probably be indoors for this particular clash. So maybe the wind won't be such a big factor. But in a way, I'm not sure if it will be a big factor any because both of them dealt with the wind extremely well today. Shnaider hitting just 27 unforced errors across those three sets. Aryna Sabalenka hitting 57 unforced errors across those three sets or more than double of...