Roland Garros | Stefanos Tsitsipas is shown the exit door by the 40th player in the world

(Paris) The outgoing finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas, 4^e world, was eliminated from the 8^are final Monday 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, by the young Danish hopeful Holger Rune (40^e) who reached the quarters of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time.

” It’s incredible ! I was very nervous at the end and the public was great, “exclaimed the young Danish who will face the Norwegian Casper Ruud on Wednesday (8^e) to try to climb into the last four of his very first Major on clay.

“I was nervous, but I knew that I had to continue to apply my game plan if I wanted to have a chance”, added the youthful player about his opponent’s comeback in the 4^e set.

After an exchange of services at the start of the first set, Rune made the decisive break on a magnificent short-cross passing pass as Tsitsipas led the exchange, to lead 6-5 and serve for the set. The Dane offered himself two first set points, but only concluded on the third.

Rune was much more effective than Tsitsipas in this first set: he converted the two break points obtained (against one out of three for Tsitsipas) and scored 18 winning shots for 12 unforced errors against 12 and 14 for his opponent.

The ratios were reversed in the second set: Tsitsipas materialized the only break point he had, to break away 5-3 and equalize at a set everywhere on a shutout concluded by an ace, when Rune missed the three obtained (when he led 40-0 to 1-1). And the Greek managed 8 winning shots for 5 unforced errors against 9 and 11 for his opponent.

The third set was very balanced until Tsitsipas made a very bad service game (two double faults and an unforced error) to concede a white break (2-4). Rune quietly held on to lead two sets to one.

First Dane in quarters

In the fourth set, he twice took Tsitsipas’ face-off and served for the match at 5-2.

But the Greek scored 8 points in a row to come back at 5-4, forcing Rune to serve a second time for the game.

Again, Tsitsipas had three balls to level at 5-5, but Rune swept them away relying on excellent serve and won on his first match point.

With Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz in the top half of the men’s draw, Tsitsipas was the big favorite in the bottom half.

He had had a big season on clay so far: he won the Masters 1000 in Monte-Carlo, as in 2021, reached the semi-finals in Madrid and the final in Rome.

For his part, Rune is the first Dane in history to reach the quarterfinals at Roland-Garros since the tournament was created in 1925. He is also the first Dane to reach this stage of a Major since Jan Leschly who had reached the semis at the 1967 U.S. Open.

Casper Ruud qualified for his first Grand Slam quarter

Casper Ruud dominated the Pole Hubert Hurkacz (13^e), 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in his career.

“That was one of my goals for this year. I couldn’t do it in Australia (he withdrew due to injury before the start of the tournament) so it’s really great to be able to do it here,” said Ruud on the court. Before adding at a press conference: “But the tournament is not over! When you reach a new goal, you set new ones, that’s how it goes. My new objective will therefore be to reach the semi-finals”.

The 23-year-old, whose best Major performance was an 8^e finalist at the Australian Open last year, is the first Norwegian in history to reach the quarter-finals at Porte d’Auteuil. He had already marked the history of his country by integrating the world top 10 last September.

But for now, he first wants to focus on the rest of his Porte d’Auteuil career. “Right now, I’m in tournament mode, I’m not thinking about the historical side, the milestones, those things”, but “obviously it feels good and I hope to continue on this path”, a- he acknowledged.

Ruud was able to take advantage of the many faults of Hurkacz (39 against 19) who could not this time count on his service to get by. The Pole had arrived in 8^e without losing a set and without even giving up his face-off once. But on Monday, his first ball failed him (53%) and his second was no match for the qualities in return from the Norwegian, who also knew how to vary his shots to win in four sets.