PARIS — Serena Williams' chest was heaving between points. Her footwork wasn't quite right. Her misses kept coming, until she was a set and a break down in the French Open quarterfinals.
And as she so often does, Williams came through right when she needed to, moving closer to a record-equaling 22nd Grand Slam title by beating Yulia Putintseva 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 on Thursday.
How close was Williams to her earliest exit at a major since Wimbledon in 2014? Putintseva, who is from Kazakhstan and ranked only 60th, twice was a point from serving for the biggest victory of her career.
"She played unbelievable. And I honestly didn't think I was going to win that in the second set," said Williams, who will face another unseeded opponent, 58th-ranked Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands, in the semifinals. "Somehow I did."
Yes, somehow, Williams overcame not only a relentless competitor in Putintseva but also her own shakiness on a cloudy, chilly day that included a brief rain delay in the third game. The No. 1-seeded Williams' strokes were off, her range was wrong, to the tune of mistake after mistake after mistake.
Her movement was not great and the lengthy exchanges with Putintseva wore on Williams.
"The rallies were very long and very tough. She is not used to (this) in matches. Usually after four, five shots, the point is over," said Williams' coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, who used to work with Putintseva. "She had to work much more today."
Williams got so desperate at one point that she shifted her racket to her left hand to try a shot that way — and whiffed. At the end of the first set, Williams had made 24 unforced errors to Putintseva's two, which seems like it might be a typo but is not. Still, all that matters to Williams is that she won, reaching her 31st major semifinal.
Bertens is the first Dutch woman to get that far at one of tennis' four most important tournaments since Betty Stove at the 1977 U.S. Open. Bertens enters with a 12-match winning streak, the latest a 7-5, 6-2 victory over No. 8 Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland.
That was Bertens' fourth win over a seeded player in this tournament, including against No. 3 Angelique Kerber in the first round.
In the men's semifinals Friday, it will be No. 1 Novak Djokovic — eyeing a fourth Grand Slam title in a row but the first of his career at Roland Garros — against No. 13 Dominic Thiem, and No. 2 Andy Murray against No. 3 Stan Wawrinka, the defending champion.
For Djokovic, it will be his fourth consecutive day on court. He beat No. 7 Tomas Berdych 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 on Thursday, while Thiem was a point from dropping the first two sets before eliminating No. 12 David Goffin 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4, 6-1.
The most noteworthy moment of Djokovic's quarterfinal: Angered by missing a shot, he tried to spike his racket but it flew out of his slippery-from-a-drizzle right hand and sailed behind him, not far from where a line judge stood. Djokovic was issued a warning.
"I was lucky there," he said.
Since Williams earned her fourth consecutive major championship at Wimbledon a year ago for No. 21 overall, she has been beaten in the semifinals of the U.S. Open by Roberta Vinci and in the final of the Australian Open by Kerber.
This setback would have come against a more unheralded opponent. Putintseva is 21, 13 years younger than Williams, and had never been past the third round at a major until now.
Yet Putintseva scrambled to nearly every ball and threw her 5-foot-4 (1.63-meter) frame into deep groundstrokes.
At 5-all in the first, Williams went ahead 40-love on her serve, only to get broken. Putintseva then served out that set at love when Williams — what else? — flubbed a backhand. Putintseva waved her arms, telling the spectators to rejoice with her.
The key moment came at 4-all in the second set, when Putintseva held two break points: Had she converted either, she would have led 5-4 and served for the match.
She couldn't do it.
"The match was very close — and very far — from being on my side," Putintseva said.
When Williams wound up holding there with a drop volley winner, she looked up to the grey sky with her palms aloft, as if to say, "Whew!"
Williams then broke to take the set when Putintseva double-faulted. Putintseva twirled her racket and dropped it and shoved the brim of her white cap over her eyes. They would go on to play another 32 minutes, but that was pretty much that.
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