Matteo Arnaldi produced one of the matches of the French Open to become the third Italian man in the quarter-finals on Monday, beating American 19th seed Frances Tiafoe 7-6(5) 6-7(5) 3-6 7-6(3) 6-4 in a late-night contest on Court Suzanne-Lenglen that lasted five hours and 26 minutes.
The result gave Italy a notable presence in the last eight, with Arnaldi joining Matteo Berrettini and Flavio Cobolli despite . Arnaldi, ranked 104 in the world, will now face compatriot Berrettini for a place in the semi-finals.
Arnaldi had looked finished when he fell 4-1 behind in the fourth set, with Tiafoe in control and the match slipping away. Instead, under the and with the crowd fully engaged, he found another push, dragged the contest into a deciding set and then came through on his third match point after a night of fierce ball-striking and punishing rallies.
“It’s a dream to be here. Today in the third set I was so tired,” Arnaldi said after the match. “We live to play these matches, I always wanted to play like this at night at Roland Garros. It was not tennis, just something else, with everything we had. Someone had to win. Fortunately, it was me tonight.”
Arnaldi has now spent 17 hours and 42 minutes on court in Paris, the most by any player reaching the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam since the ATP Tour began recording match times in 1991. He had already needed more than five hours to get through his third-round match, and again he had to rely on endurance as much as skill.
Against Tiafoe’s power, the Italian survived through relentless defence, chasing from corner to corner and repeatedly turning defence into attack. The match stretched both men to exhaustion before Tiafoe finally broke, sending a backhand into the net to end it.
For Arnaldi, it was a comeback from the edge and a place in the last eight; for Italy, it was another marker in a strong Paris run, with three men in the quarter-finals and an all-Italian meeting between Arnaldi and Berrettini now set to decide one semi-final spot.