grand slam finalist<\/a> there since the second round, and he is as desperate as anyone else to break through after spending his past few years in the wilderness battling countless injuries and falling out of the top 100. The only seeded players remaining in the top half of the draw are F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime, and Cobolli \u2013 seeded four and 10 respectively \u2013 for whom this is an enormous opportunity to fulfil their potential and reach a grand slam final.<\/p>\nOn Saturday, that unease was reflected in an extraordinary day as five of the eight matches extended to five sets, including multiple five-hour matches. Some players were excruciatingly nervous at the beginning of their matches and others faltered at the close. Very few were capable of playing with even a semblance of freedom.<\/p>\n
It was nearly 1am on Sunday when Frances Tiafoe, the 19th seed, appeared before the media after recovering from two sets down against the qualifier Jaime Faria to win his second consecutive five-set match. While some players have shied away from discussing the significance of the situation, stressing the importance of focusing on one match at a time, controlling all that they can control and other such cliches, Tiafoe did not hesitate to reference the source of his elevated tension \u201cSecond time in my career I\u2019ve come back from two sets to love down,\u201d Tiafoe said. \u201cDefinitely the biggest time I\u2019ll ever do it, considering, right?\u201d Then he scanned his audience, giving each journalist a knowing stare. \u201cObvious why I say that.\u201d Tiafoe lost in five sets to the unseeded Italian Matteo Arnaldi in a match that finished in the early hours of Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Quick GuideFrench Open quarter-finalsShow<\/p>\n
Women’s singles<\/p>\n
A Sabalenka (1) v\u00a0D Shnaider (25)<\/p>\n
A Kalinskaya (22) v\u00a0M Chwalinska (Pol)<\/p>\n
E Svitolina (Ukr, 7) v\u00a0M Kostyuk (Ukr, 15)<\/p>\n
M Andreeva (8) v\u00a0S Cirstea (Rom, 18)<\/p>\n
Men’s singles<\/p>\n
M Berrettini (It) v M Arnaldi (It)<\/p>\n
F Auger-Aliassime (Can, 4) v\u00a0F Cobolli (It, 10)<\/p>\n
J Mensik (Cz, 26) v\u00a0J Fonseca (Bra, 28)<\/p>\n
R Jodar (Sp, 27) v\u00a0A Zverev (Ger, 2)<\/p>\n
Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n
These circumstances may be unprecedented in men\u2019s tennis over the past two decades, but it isn\u2019t an unfamiliar sight in general. For years during the dominance of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Djokovic, the predictability of the men\u2019s tour, where the top players would reliably compete against each other in the latter rounds of the majors, was offset by the chaos that could unfold in any given women\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n
While her male colleagues battled hard, Madison Keys cut an amused figure on Saturday. She had to wait five hours and 13 minutes before her third-round match, after Berrettini closed out against Argentina\u2019s Francisco Comesa\u00f1a 15-13 in the fifth-set tie-break. The 30-year-old Italian at least had a straightforward time on Monday afternoon, beating Juan Manuel Cer\u00fandolo in straight sets to reach the last eight.<\/p>\n
Auger-Aliassime dispatched Alejandro Tabilo just as easily on Monday, winning 6-3, 7-5, 6-1 to reach the last eight here for the first time.<\/p>\n
F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime beat Alejandro Tabilo 6-3, 7-5, 6-1 to reach the last eight. Photograph: James Fearn\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
He now plays Cobolli and the man from Montreal was keen to recruit the support of the Paris fans. \u201cThis has always been a dream for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not French but I\u2019m very Francophone and I\u2019m sure I can count on your support all the way to the end. I feel as if I\u2019m at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old broke in the fourth game of the first set.<\/p>\n
In the second set, he grabbed the only break he needed in the 11th game and, as Tabilo subsided, he raced through the third in 26 minutes.<\/p>\n
Keys has had to navigate her fair share of unpredictable draws over the years and she addressed the subject. \u201cI think we\u2019ve seen in the men\u2019s scores that they\u2019re all really worried about who is going to be in the finals and not on the match today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like their anxiety is slowly seeping into everyone\u2019s lives, so hopefully they can make it through that and feel a little bit better and stop worrying about the final Sunday and worrying about today, tomorrow. But I do think that it\u2019s always exciting when crazy things happen. As a tennis fan, it\u2019s been fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
As uncomfortable as parts of the coming week will be for the men left in Paris, these players are also the envy of their fallen peers and they each have a great opening in front of them.<\/p>\n
Regardless of who makes it, Sunday\u2019s men\u2019s final will be the most significant moment in the career of any of the two players still standing. \u201cI was telling some of my homies, it\u2019s fun to be a part of, man,\u201d said Tiafoe. \u201cYou\u2019re a part of history, however you want to look at it, right. Whether you get it done or not, you\u2019re part of history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the immediate aftermath of one of the most significant wins of his career, a victory over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-710062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}