Incredible comeback: Arnaldi beats Tiafoe in five sets and over five hours to reach his first Grand Slam quarterfinal at Roland-Garros

Italy will not be playing in the FIFA World Cup that begins in ten days. But it will have three of its players in the Roland-Garros men’s quarter-finals – the first time in Grand Slam history that a single country has produced three Italian men in the last eight of a major.

After Flavio Cobolli and Matteo Berrettini earlier in the day, Matteo Arnaldi completed the trio late on Monday night, beating American 19th seed Frances Tiafoe 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-4 in five hours and 26 minutes on Court Suzanne-Lenglen – recovering from 1-4 down in the fourth set with a double break against him, and from being twice two points from defeat when Tiafoe served at 5-4 in the fourth (at 30-0 and again at 40-40).

The match finished after one in the morning local time, the latest finish of the tournament so far. It was Arnaldi’s second consecutive five-set marathon, after he beat Belgium’s Raphaël Collignon in five sets in the previous round.

Records for Italian tennis

The numbers around Arnaldi’s run carry a record of their own. The 25-year-old Italian has spent 17 hours and 42 minutes on court to reach the quarter-finals – one hour and 58 minutes longer than any other player has taken to reach the quarter-finals at any Grand Slam tournament since the ATP Tour began recording match times in 1991. He is also the lowest-ranked qualifier path to a Roland-Garros quarter-final, at world No. 104; the Italian had reached the fourth round here in 2024 but had never gone further at a major in his career.

For Tiafoe, who had himself produced one of the comebacks of the tournament in the third round by beating Jaime Faria from two sets down, the loss is the cruellest of his career. He served for the match at 5-4 in the fourth, was 30-0 up on his own serve, and had Arnaldi looking like a player at the edge of his physical limits. “I don’t know how I’m standing here to be honest,” Arnaldi said afterwards.

I always dreamed to play matches like this.

“I always dreamed to play matches like this, at Roland-Garros, at night, in these battles against someone like Frances. I think at one point it wasn’t tennis, it was just something else, you just played with everything you had. There had to be a winner, and fortunately it was me tonight. This is definitely the best match I ever played.”

Arnaldi, ranked No. 104, will face Berrettini in the quarter-finals on Wednesday – the first all-Italian men’s quarter-final at Roland-Garros in the Open Era, and the match that will guarantee an Italian semi-finalist at this tournament for the first time in 23 years, since Filippo Volandri reached the last four in 2003. Cobolli, meanwhile, faces fourth seed Félix Auger-Aliassime in his quarter-final. Three Italian men in the last eight of a Grand Slam at the same time – including the lowest-ranked Roland-Garros quarter-finalist since 2007 (Berrettini at No. 105) and the second-lowest in Arnaldi (No. 104) – has never happened before.

With Sinner gone from this half of the draw since the second round, three Italians have filled the space he was projected to dominate. Berrettini, Arnaldi and Cobolli now surround Félix Auger-Aliassime, the fourth seed and the only top-10 player still in this section. The Canadian, who faces Cobolli in the quarter-finals, is the lone non-Italian standing in the upper half.