No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev and No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas were upset in the French Open fourth round, blowing open the bottom half of the men’s draw.
In the night match, 33-year-old Croatian Marin Cilic took out the Russian Medvedev 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 to make his first major quarterfinal in four years. He gets No. 7 Andrey Rublev, who advanced 1-6, 6-4, 2-0 when No. 11 Jannik Sinner of Italy retired with an injury.
Holger Rune, a 19-year-old from Denmark, became the second teen man to make the quarters, upsetting the Greek Tsitsipas.
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Rune, the 2019 French Open junior champion who hadn’t won a Grand Slam main draw match before this tournament, won 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to set a quarterfinal with Norwegian Casper Ruud.
Ruud reached the first Grand Slam quarterfinal of his career by beating Hubert Hurkacz 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
With Rune and Carlos Alcaraz, it’s the first Grand Slam event with two teenage men in the quarterfinals since the 1994 French Open (Hendrik Dreekmann and Andrei Medvedev).
Rune is also the first Danish man to make a French Open quarterfinal and the first to do it at any major since Jan Leschly at the 1967 U.S. Open.
Tsitsipas, who blew a two-set lead over Novak Djokovic in last year’s French Open final, became the first men’s top eight seed to lose at this year’s Roland Garros.
The most-anticipated men’s quarterfinal will be Tuesday night in Paris, the 59th career meeting between defending champion Novak Djokovic and 13-time champion Rafael Nadal. Also Tuesday, No. 3 Alexander Zverev plays No. 6 Carlos Alcaraz, a 19-year-old from Spain.
Also Monday, top women’s seed Iga Swiatek escaped China’s 74th-ranked Zheng Qinwen 6-7 (5), 6-0, 6-2 after Zheng took a medical timeout in the second set. Swiatek, the lone top 10 women’s seed into the quarters, has won 32 consecutive matches.
“I’m pretty happy I could come back after a pretty frustrating first set when I had the lead,” Swiatek said. “Pretty happy with myself that I’m still in the tournament.”
She has won her past five tournaments, going unbeaten since February for the WTA’s longest such stretch since Serena Williams compiled a 34-match run in 2013. With 23-time Grand Slam champion Williams absent from the tour for nearly a year, and Swiatek’s predecessor atop the rankings, two-time major winner Ash Barty, having recently retired, there is no dominant figure in women’s tennis to mount a challenge.
Next to try to stop Swiatek will be 11th-seeded Jessica Pegula, who advanced to her third major quarterfinal — and first in Paris — with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania, who was fined $10,000 last week when she threw her racket and it bounced into the stands, brushing a child in a front-row seat.
Veronika Kudermetova knocked out American Madison Keys1-6, 6-3, 6-1 to reach a quarterfinal with fellow Russian Daria Kasatkina, a 6-2, 6-2 winner over Camila Giorgi.
Keys, who reached the semifinals at Roland Garros in 2018 and the quarterfinals the following year, dominated the opening set but lost rhythm after Kudermetova took a bathroom break before the second set.
She held and then broke Keys’ serve to take a 2-0 lead in the second, which she served out on her seventh set point.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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