Tennis

Tennis, ATP – Roland-Garros 2024: Tsitsipas beats Arnaldi

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4 months ago

June 2, 2024

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Tennis, ATP – Roland-Garros 2024: Tsitsipas beats Arnaldi

Stefanos Tsitsipas was on the brink of a two-set deficit but stormed back to beat Matteo Arnaldi 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-2 on Sunday afternoon at Roland-Garros, securing a spot in the quarter-finals. Tsitsipas advanced after three hours and 11 minutes, setting up a showdown with Carlos Alcaraz.

Coming off a third-round upset of Andrey Rublev, Arnaldi maintained momentum through almost two whole sets against Tsitsipas. The 35th-ranked Italian rolled through the opening frame of play before building a 5-3 advantage in the second. He had a total of four set points across two different games — three with Tsitsipas serving at 3-5 and one on his own serve at 5-4.

However, Arnaldi could not convert and after that the match shifted in a major way. Tsitsipas broke back for 5-5, eventually forced a tiebreak and then took it seven points to four.

From there the world No 9 had a huge edge the rest of the way.

TSITSIPAS BATTLES INTO ALCARAZ MATCHUP

“I had to push today,” Tsitsipas assured. “It was one of the craziest comebacks I have had. The momentum seemed to be going his way the entire match. It was very frustrating on my end because I thought I was trying my best, trying to make him move, but nothing really seemed to be working.

“The spirit is the reason I managed to come back today. Even at 3-5 in the second set I felt that I could come back. That there was power in me to turn this match around and I think the game at 5-4 when I broke him was the biggest pleasure I experienced in tennis for a long time because I felt there was a chance. Now me and the crowd are on this, and it felt amazing.”

Ahead of Sunday’s result the Greek got the best of Hungarian Marton Fucsovics (7-6 (7), 6-4, 6-1), German Daniel Altmaier (6-3, 6-2, 6-7 (2), 6-4) and China’s Zhizhen Zhang (6-3, 6-3, 6-1).

Tsitsipas’ reward is a sixth meeting with Alcaraz, who is sweeping the head-to-head series 5-0. They also faced each other in the Roland-Garros quarter-finals last season, when the Spaniard prevailed in straight sets.

It was still a stellar fortnight for Arnaldi, who took out Frenchman Arthur Fils, the No 29 seed (6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2), French wildcard Alexandre Muller (6-4, 6-1, 6-3) and Russian Andrey Rublev, the No 6 seed (7-6 (6), 6-2, 6-4).