French Open 2016: Serena Williams struggles past Yulia Putintseva to reach semis

The American survived two break points at 4-4 in the second set, which she eventually won when world number 60 Putintseva served a double fault.

The momentum had swung Williams’s way and the American crushed Putintseva in the decider, wrapping it up on her fourth match point with an unreturnable serve.

Unseeded Bertens gets French Open semi-final berth

Dutch outsider Kiki Bertens reached her first grand slam semi-final on Thursday, beating eighth-seeded Swiss Timea Bacsinszky 7-5 6-2 with the help of a seven-game winning streak to set up a clash with world number one Serena Williams.

With neither woman venturing often to the net or able to dominate the long groundstroke rallies, the first set turned into an attritional contest that featured seven breaks of serve.

Bacsinszky looked to have made the conclusive one in game nine, passing 58th-ranked Bertens at the net with a crosscourt forehand on the fourth deuce point. But Bertens immediately broke back and then broke again for the set after holding her own serve.

That sequence seemed to unnerve Bacsinszky, who also lost the next four games, leaving her too much ground to make up.