GENEVA: Novak Djokovic on Thursday booked his spot in the Geneva Open tennis tournament semifinals, putting the world No. 1 within two matches of his first trophy of 2024, days before his French Open title defense begins.

Djokovic saw off a first set challenge from Tallon Griekspoor to win 7-5, 6-1 in 77 minutes at the Parc des Eaux-Vives.

Griekspoor, the world No. 27, was the sixth seed at the 28-man Geneva tournament, which serves as a warm-up before next week’s second Grand Slam of the season in Paris.

The Dutchman had three set points against Djokovic in the first set.

“It was a great win. I thought the first set could have gone his way easily because I think he was a better player for most of the first set,” Djokovic said afterwards.

“We could have been having a completely different direction of the match if he converted those set points.

“I was lucky to find some really good serves, and from that moment onwards I really, really played some good, solid tennis.”

It was a bridge too far for Griekspoor, who earlier Thursday finished off his second-round match with Denis Shapovalov, beating the Canadian 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (7/4), 6-3.

The match had been called off for the night in the second set on Wednesday due to rain.

Djokovic, who turned 37 on Wednesday, took a wild card to play in Geneva in a bid to rescue an alarming dip in form ahead of Roland-Garros next week.

Djokovic will face Tomas Machac of the Czech Republic in Friday’s semifinals.

The pair have only met once before, with Djokovic winning their contest in Dubai last year.

Machac, the world No. 44, will be appearing in his first semifinal on the ATP tour.

He saw off 19-year-old Alex Michelsen of the United States 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) in their quarter-final on the Geneva clay.

Friday’s second semifinal will see Norwegian second seed Casper Ruud face Italy’s in-form Flavio Cobolli.

Ruud, the world number seven, was the runner-up in the last two French Open finals, including a defeat to Djokovic last year.

Ruud, at home on the Geneva clay having won the title in 2021 and 2022, beat Argentinian fifth seed Sebastian Baez in a roller-coaster match, winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in a two-hour quarterfinal on Thursday.

“It was a tough match against Sebastian. He’s a great player, a great fighter and it was always going to be difficult against him,” Ruud said.

“It was a very close match in the end, back and forth, back and forth. But I’m very happy to be through, back in the semifinals here in Geneva, it’s a great feeling.”

Italian Cobolli, on a career-high ranking of 56, saw off Kazakhstan’s Alexander Shevchenko 6-4, 6-4 in the last eight, having knocked out US fourth seed Ben Shelton in the second round.

The Hague: The top United Nations court on Friday will rule on a plea by South Africa to order a halt to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, with Pretoria accusing Israel of “genocide.”
Pretoria has urged the International Court of Justice to order an “immediate” stop to Israel’s campaign, including in the southern area of Rafah, and facilitate access of humanitarian aid.
Israel wants the court to toss out the request, arguing an enforced ceasefire would allow Hamas fighters to regroup and make it impossible to recover hostages taken in their October 7 assault.
In a highly-charged ruling in January, the court ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.
South Africa argues that the recent Israeli operation in Rafah changed the situation on the ground and should compel the court to issue fresh emergency orders.
The ICJ rules in disputes between countries. Its orders are legally binding but it has no means to enforce them directly. The court has, for example, ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine to no avail.
Judges could agree to South Africa’s request, reject it out of hand or even issue a completely separate set of orders.
The ICJ’s ruling comes hot on the heels of a landmark request by the International Criminal Court’s lead prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders.
Prosecutor Karim Khan alleges that senior Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, plus top Hamas officials, are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the October 7 attack and the war in Gaza.
In public hearings at the ICJ last week, South Africa’s ambassador Vusimuzi Madonsela alleged that “Israel’s genocide has continued apace and has just reached a new and horrific stage.”
“Although the present application was triggered by the unfolding situation in Rafah, Israel’s genocidal onslaught across Gaza has intensified over the past few days, also warranting the attention of this Court,” he said.
South Africa charges the only way to enable humanitarian aid in to ease the crisis in Gaza is a full halt to Israel’s military operations.
It wants the court to issue emergency orders — “provisional measures” in court jargon — while it weighs the broader South African case that Israel is breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
Israel counters that South Africa’s case is an “obscene exploitation of the most sacred convention” and the picture Pretoria paints to the court is “completely divorced from the facts and circumstances.”
“It makes a mockery of the heinous charge of genocide,” said top Israel lawyer Gilam Noam at hearings.
“Calling something a genocide, again and again, does not make it genocide. Repeating a lie does not make it true,” he added.
Noam described Rafah as a “focal point for ongoing terrorist activity” and said that operations there were “limited and localized,” with no harm meant to civilians.
Israel pressed ahead with the assault on Rafah, the last city in Gaza to be entered by its ground troops, in defiance of global opposition, including from top ally the United States.
Washington voiced concerns that about 1.4 million Palestinians trapped in the city would be caught in the line of fire.
Israel has since ordered mass evacuations from the city, and the UN says more than 800,000 people have fled.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 124 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,800 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Israel has also imposed a siege that has deprived Gaza’s 2.4 million people of most clean water, food, medicines and fuel.