French Open Day 11: Iga Swiatek ousts Jessica Pegula, Casper Rudd reaches semifinals

It's the last day of the quarterfinals on Day 11 of the French Open, and while Iga Swiatek is headlining as she seeks her 33rd straight match win, there are a lot of interesting players to watch.

In the early men's quarterfinal, 19-year-old Holger Rune, who hails from Denmark, will take on the 8th-seeded Norwegian Casper Ruud. Rune hasn't gotten as much notice as Carlos Alcaraz, but Rune is also a fantastic young talent on the rise. In the second men's quarterfinal match of the day, No. 7 Andrey Rublev is playing No. 20 Marin Cilic, who beat Daniil Medvedev in straight sets in Round 4.

Check back here for results on the new and unexpected faces playing at Roland Garros on Wednesday.

Casper Rudd reaches semifinals after win over Rune

Casper Rudd's run at Roland-Garros continues.

Rudd recovered after an early slip to close out Denmark's Holger Rune in his quarterfinals match at the French Open on Wednesday night, winning 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3.

The win officially puts the 23-year-old into his first Grand Slam semifinals and makes him the first Norwegian man to reach a Grand Slam semifinal in the Open era.

Rudd, who entered with the No. 8 seed, will now take on Croatia's Martin Cilic in the semifinals. Cilic knocked off Russia's Andrey Rublev in a five-set battle earlier on Wednesday.

Swiatek's roll continues with victory over Pegula

Iga Swiatek is mortal, as we saw during her stressful Round 4 match against Qinwen Zhang, but she may be a little less mortal than the rest of us. Swiatek took down Jessica Pegula on Wednesday to win her 33rd straight match. It took Swiatek 89 minutes to beat Pegula 6-3, 6-2.

Swiatek was loose and aggressive, looking much better than she had against Zhang on Monday. Pegula is strong, and Swiatek did her best to keep as many balls as possible away from her strike zone. But there was another strategy in play as well. Pegula likes to play fast, so Swiatek did her best so slow everything down and force Pegula out of her comfort zone.

The biggest and fiercest battle of the match was in the first set. The first three games took more than 17 minutes, and it looked like Pegula could really do some damage after going up 3-2. But then, as we've seen her do so many times, Swiatek got in the zone and won the next four games to nail down the set. To get one over on Swiatek these days, you have to be fresh and well-rested, and Pegula, who has also been playing doubles with Coco Gauff, began to lag a bit. And once Swiatek really got going, she couldn't be stopped.

It's been 105 days since Swiatek's last match loss. Daria Kasatkina will be the latest woman to try and put an end to that when the two face off in their semifinal match on Thursday.

Kasatkina overcomes late surge from Kudermetova

Daria Kasatkina defeated Veronika Kudermetova 6-4, 7-6(5) on Wednesday, overcoming her nerves and leaning on her Top 10 serve to advance to her first major semifinal.

It was a close match between two equal competitors. Katsatkina (seeded 20th) has 22-match wins on the season (5th on the tour) and Kudermetova (seeded 29th) has 20, and neither allowed the other to get too far ahead during the match. Kudermetova played with power, while Kasatkina played with depth, making for a tense back and forth.

Kudermetova jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the first set, and even after Kasatkina tied it back up, it looked like Kudermetova was in control when she moved ahead 4-3. But Kasatkina, who had lost just 14 total games coming into the quarterfinal, fought hard to win the next three games to take the set.

Kasatkina had yet to drop a set at Roland Garros, but that streak almost came to an end against Kudermetova. They traded games, staying close, but Kudermetova had a chance to force a third set when she found herself up 6-5. Kasatkina then allowed just one point in the next game to make it 6-6 and force a tiebreaker, and carried that over by skipping ahead 6-1. Kudermetova score four straight points to make it 6-5, but then Kasatkina found that one final point to make her first-ever Grand Slam semifinal.

In her postmatch interview, Kasatkina admitted to feeling nervous, especially when she was trying to score that seventh point in the tiebreak.

Kasatkina will face No. 1 Iga Swiatek in Thursday's semifinal.

Marin Cilic reaches French Open semifinal

Marin Cilic fell behind early, but finished strong late to notch a trip to the French Open semifinal Wednesday. Cilic went the distance against Andrey Rublev, eventually defeating Rublev in five sets.

Rublev took the lead early, winning the first set against Cilic 7-5. Cilic then rallied, taking the next two sets 6-3 and 6-4.

With his back against the wall, Rublev rallied. He took the fourth set 6-3. That set up the fifth and final set. The two players went back and forth, but Cilic prevailed 7-6.

The match lasted 4 hours and 10 minutes.

With the win, Cilic will advance to his first ever French Open semifinal.