It could be said that what happened in the third phase of Roland Garros It was a classic: Francisco Cerúndolo faced Tommy Paul for the sixth time in his career and he came out well again. He prevailed for 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 and 6-2 in a duel that lasted almost three hours in the Court 7 from the French complex to get the ticket to round of 16 of the Grand Slam on brick dust where he waits for Novak Djokovic either Lorenzo Musetti.
The Argentinian 25 yearsthat now He is 4-2 up in the history against the North American who is ranked 14th in the ranking, will play the fourth match of the French Open for the second time in his career after reaching that stage in the 2023 edition, where he lost against the Dane Holger Rune. It will then also be the second time that he plays that phase in a Grand Slam, since his other best statistics in these competitions were with the third round of the Australian Open 2023 when he was defeated by the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime.
“I’m very happy. The game started, I didn’t feel like I was playing badly, but I felt like I was really shitting myself.. She felt that he was very firm from all sides. Maybe the field was too slow and I couldn’t overtake him anywhere. From the second set onwards the rain stopped a little and I started to play much better. From there I dominated almost the entire game,” he said before ESPN The current 27th in the world who holds two ATP titles in his career.
Fransecond best national racket in the ranking, had just eliminated the German in three sets Yannick Hanfmann and to the Austrian Filip Misolic previously. “When I recovered from 2-1 down and held my serve, from then on I think the game changed. He fell emotionally. He was going up and started to get a little annoyed, things that he doesn’t do.. I started playing much better, more aggressive. At first he was very aggressive, so it was difficult,” he explained.
And I add: “At one point I started to play aggressively, I gained confidence and started dealing with my forehand.. From there I began to spread it everywhere. I think he felt a little overwhelmed and tried to hurry up a little more and made some mistakes that he usually doesn’t make. Very happy because he is a very tough rival who has been having great years. “Beating him in a Grand Slam is very important.”
The Argentine representative added one ace in the entire game, had five double faults, although he had a percentage of 73% with his first serve. The match had a unique first set where service was broken five times. That trend started the same way in the second set, where Cerúndolo gave up his serve at first, but recovered by breaking his opponent’s serve twice in a row. In total, he then broke Paul’s serve five more times.
“The other day with Misolic I hit the backhand very well, which made me happy because he had played very good flat backhands from the bottom and he made me a little adaptation for today because Tommy has a very good flat backhand, there, short. I think that having played that match he had a bit of feeling to get her out of the bottom because it is difficult,” he explained about his game.
When warned about the chance of facing Djokovic in the next round, he confessed: “The truth is that I would like to, I never played him, I don’t know how much longer he will play and how many more chances I will have that he touches me in a box. “If it’s Djokovic’s turn, it will be an unforgettable experience to play in the round of 16 of Roland Garros on the center court against the best in history in terms of numbers, it would be a very nice prize.”
