Ana Ivanovic and Lucie Safarova will clash for a place in the French Tennis Open final after comfortably defeating younger rivals at a windswept Roland Garros.
The Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic celebrates her quarter-final win at the French Open. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Ivanovic reached her first grand slam semi-final in seven years when she beat Ukraine's Elina Svitolina 6-3 6-2, while Safarova booked a place in the French Open last four for the first time by seeing off Garbine Muguruza 7-6 6-3.
Serb seventh seed Ivanovic, 27, last made the semi-finals of a major on her way to her only grand slam title in Paris in 2008.
It will be her fifth last-four appearance at a major following similar runs to the 2007 and 2008 semi-finals at Roland Garros, Wimbledon in 2007 and the Australian Open in 2008.
Ivanovic says I don't know whether to feel happy or old... she has now won all her seven meetings against Svitolina, seven years her junior.
The 28-year-old Czech left-hander Safarova followed-up her fourth-round defeat of world number two and defending champion Maria Sharapova with a straight sets beating of 21-year-old Muguruza.
Safarova will be playing in her second career grand slam semi-final after making the last four at Wimbledon in 2014.
The other quarter-finals take place tomorrow when two-time champion Serena Williams tackles Italy's Sara Errani, the 2012 runner-up, and Swiss 23rd seed Timea Bacsinszky faces unseeded Belgian Alison Van Uytvanck.
