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By Giri Nathan
[vc_empty_space height="15px"]The test of a high-drama tennis match is whether it can make even a neutral observer feel ill. I can queasily report that this standard was met by the second women’s semifinal on Thursday, which had me holding my phone in a vice grip and unable to imagine swinging a tennis racquet, which these two women continued to do despite never having played a match with these stakes before. It’s been a turbulent Roland-Garros for the women, with a slew of top seeds wiped out either before the tournament or early in it, whether by calf muscle tear (Simona Halep), hip injury (Ashleigh Barty), personal crisis after bowing out of press availability (Naomi Osaka), fluke ankle turn while participating in press availability (Petra Kvitova), or a sleeper in the draw going deep (Bianca Andreescu). This might have opened up space for some less heralded names to advance, which gave us four first-time semifinalists. Never having been there before means nerves. Nerves mean a choppy match, and often a gut-churning, captivating one.