PARIS — Let us not bury the lede.

Marco Cecchinato, a 25-year-old Italian ranked No. 72 who had not won a Grand Slam singles match until arriving at the French Open this year, is in the semifinals after upsetting Novak Djokovic, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 1-6, 7-6 (11), on Tuesday.

It is one of the great Grand Slam Cinderella stories, and Cecchinato, who has a tattoo of the number 13, is clearly one who can see opportunity where others might see bad luck.

He has made the most of a brutal draw, knocking off three seeded players, and his unexpected run comes in the same clay-covered place where a few other charismatic outsiders have also emerged from fairly close to nowhere.

None fared better than Gustavo Kuerten, an elastic Brazilian known as Guga, who arrived at Roland Garros unseeded and largely unknown and proceeded to win the title in 1997.