French Open: Stan Wawrinka, Andy Murray in semis face-off

Andy Murray and defending champion Stan Wawrinka set up a mouthwatering French Open semi-final duel on Wednesday as Novak Djokovic became the first player to smash the $100 million prize money barrier.

Second seed Murray reached the semi-finals in Paris for a fourth time by battling back to defeat the last home hope Richard Gasquet 5-7, 7-6 (7/3), 6-0, 6-2.

Wawrinka, the 31-year-old third seed, became the oldest man since 1985 to reach the semi-finals with a 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 (9/7) win over Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas.

Top seed Djokovic reached the quarter-finals for the 10th time by defeating 14th seeded Roberto Bautista Agut 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, 7-5.

The 29-year-old Serb will on Thursday take on Czech seventh seed Tomas Berdych, who beat Spanish 11th seed David Ferrer 6-3, 7-5, 6-3. Serena sweeps aside Svitolina Defending champion Serena Williams brushed off concerns about a busy playing schedule after powering into the quarter-finals.

Williams reached the last eight at Roland Garros for the 10th time after pulverising 18th seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-1, 6-1 in just over an hour.

But the world no. 1, who next plays Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, faces the challenge of playing four matches in four days in her pursuit of a record-equalling 22nd Open era Grand Slam title. Swiss eighth seed Timea Bacsinszky dumped out sister Venus 6-2, 6-4.

Putintseva, 21, the youngest player left in the draw, extended her best run at a major with a 7-5, 7-5 victory over Spanish 12th seed Carla Suarez Navarro.

Paes, Bopanna crash out Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna lost their respective quarter-final matches as Indian challenge in the men’s doubles event came to an end.

Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea, seeded sixth, went down 4-6, 4-6 to third seeds Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Marcelo Melo of Brazil.

Paes and his Polish partner Marcin Matko-wski also lost 6-7 (12-14), 3-6 to American pair of Mike and Bob Bryan.

Meanwhile, second seeded Sania and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig beat French pair of Alize Cornet and Jonathan Eysseric 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 10-8 to enter quarters.