Roland Garros: Arnaldi feat, won back two sets from Auger-Aliassime: now there's the derby
Matteo Arnaldi gives himself a prestigious result, making it past the first round of Roland Garros for the third year in a row.
After a marathon of nearly four and a half hours, the tournament’s number 29 seed, Felix Auger-Aliassime, fell after a match that had seen the San Remo native go down two sets before producing an extraordinary comeback. 5-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 was the final score.
The Canadian, former world No. 6 and currently ranked 27th, had managed to win a very balanced first set before taking the lead in a one-sided fraction that began with a 0-4 lead that became impossible to overturn. From the third set on, however, Arnaldi got his ideas back in order, beginning a slow but inexorable comeback.
The class of 2001, while also starting poorly in the third fraction, managed to recover the break disadvantage, winning four consecutive games that began to put sand in Auger-Aliassime’s gears. The victory in the third fraction was then replicated in the fourth, and at that point Arnaldi further shifted gears, with a near-perfect fifth set worth the qualification.
Waiting for Matteo Arnaldi, in the second round of Roland Garros 2025, there’s now a “fratricidal” clash: the opponent in the all-Italian derby will be Flavio Cobolli, who a few hours earlier had defeated Marin Cilic without any particular difficulty, with a final score of 6-2, 6-1, 6-3 in an hour and three quarters of play. The match between Arnaldi and Cobolli is scheduled for Thursday, May 29, no earlier than 11 a.m.
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