Roland Garros: Lorenzo Sonego’s miraculous feat, Andrey Rublev remounted and beaten

Roland Garros: feat of Lorenzo Sonego

A victory that smacks of a miracle, as he called it: Lorenzo Sonego defeated the tournament’s No. 7 seed, Russia’s Andrey Rublev, by a score of 5-7 0-6 6-3 7-6 6-3 and qualified for the Roland Garros round of 16 for the second time since 2020.

Three hours and 42 minutes of great emotions in which the Turinese confirmed himself as the greatest fighter that Italian tennis has right now. Losing serve in the first game, he came back from 5-3 to 5-5 but here he lost eight consecutive games finding himself down two sets.

A break in the fourth game of the third set made the difference in his favor, in the fourth he immediately went ahead by a break but was remounted by the Russian, then won the tie-break 7-5 and then in the fifth set he made the decisive breakthrough at 4-3. He will now face the other Russian Karen Khachanov, who defeated Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis in four sets.

“Maybe it’s a miracle, maybe I played my best tennis: after an hour I was down two sets, then the great comeback. Thanks to the audience who always encouraged me,” said “Sonny” at the end of the match. “After the first two sets I managed to be more aggressive, also because when he commands the exchange it is difficult to score points.I pushed so much with my serve and played every single ‘fifteen’ to the maximum. On 5-3 a lot of things went through my head but I tried to keep playing and to command the exchanges. However, I also thought it was nice to play on this court and live in the moment.”