After spending four hours and 21 minutes on court with Rafael Nadal on Sunday at Roland Garros, Felix Auger-Aliassime knows where the Spaniard’s game stands. Although Nadal is a 13-time major winner for whom he has the utmost respect, the Canadian believes the road will only get harder for the lefty after their five-set thriller.

Will Nadal be able to defeat World No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Tuesday in their quarter-final blockbuster?

“I wish Rafa the very best, I admire him greatly in everything that he’s done. He’s somebody who I really like, and so I wish him the very best for the next match,” Auger-Aliassime said. “But then I think that he also knows that it’s going to be difficult. We played for a long time today and it’s still the quarter-finals and afterwards there’s still two more matches to win to win the tournament. Rafa is coming here to win the tournament.

“So as I said, I really wish him the very best, but it will be a monumental effort for him, I think, to win. But as he and Novak have always done, they will give it their all right through to the end and it will be a great battle.”

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It will not just be a massive challenge for Nadal, but for Djokovic as well. Auger-Aliassime experienced the difficulty of playing Nadal himself on Sunday, when he played top-tier tennis only to fall short against the fifth seed.

“[It takes] a lot of effort, a lot of concentration. At one point even though he raised the level of his game, there were a few dips, physically, mentally, and I kind of lost the order of the game. I lost my intentions at one point,” Auger-Aliassime said. “But despite everything, I managed to come back when necessary, to serve well again.

“At the end of the day, I showed some positive things, and I managed to last the whole run and it’s positive for what comes next.”

Despite his loss, Auger-Aliassime has now advanced to at least the fourth round at four consecutive majors. Before this streak, he had not made it that far at two straight Grand Slams.

Furthermore, Nadal has only lost three of his 112 matches at Roland Garros, with two of those defeats coming against Djokovic. Auger-Aliassime became just the third player to push the lefty to a fifth set on the Parisian clay, joining Djokovic and John Isner.

“I’m proud about the effort I produced, the game I played, and like most of my matches I try to leave the match without any regrets,” Auger-Aliassime said. “I tried things, I changed my tactics, my position and I think I tried everything with regard to what I did today.

“I think my service is very good, but there are things in my game that I can improve to be more comfortable in certain moments or maybe win not just by the skin of my teeth, you have to have a comfortable win. So there are things that I can improve, but I’m proud and I have no regrets.”

Instead, Auger-Aliassime will try to move forward taking lessons he learned from the match and his entire stay at the clay-court major. He is No. 9 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings and is trying to push higher.

“It’s always, I think, a constant work of progress trying to be a better player all the time. I know I have great shots, but they can be always more, more precise, more powerful, and more consistent,” Auger-Aliassime said. “So that’s like the main line. That’s the work of every day. But it’s good to spend time in these matches on these courts and battle four hours, test yourself mentally, physically, and at the end, that’s how you learn.

“You just try to put yourself in these difficult situations and try to find a way.”

Entering the tournament, Auger-Aliassime had not won a main draw match at Roland Garros. The Canadian leaves Paris having won three and tested an all-time great.

“It does me good to prove it to myself and to others that I deserve my place in the last players of a tournament like this one and I hope that in the coming years I will have the opportunity to win,” Auger-Aliassime said. “It makes me very happy to have won a few matches here this year.”

Carlos Alcaraz has broken new ground all season, and he did so again on Sunday in Paris.

The Spaniard reached his first Roland Garros quarter-final with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 win against 21st seed Karen Khachanov. The sixth seed will next play third seed Alexander Zverev for a place in his first major semi-final.

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Alcaraz saved a match point in the fourth set of his thrilling second-round five-setter against countryman Albert Ramos-Vinolas. Since that moment, he has shown the form that made him one of the leading favourites at the clay-court major.

In the third and fourth rounds, Alcaraz has won all six of his sets — against Sebastian Korda and Khachanov — by a margin of 6-4 or greater. The 19-year-old lost serve just once against Khachanov to advance after two hours and 14 minutes.

The story of the match could be told by one sensational point at 3-3 in the third set. Khachanov hit a smart, dipping forehand passing shot and then snuck a lob over his teen opponent’s head with his next shot. But Alcaraz had the answer, hitting a stunning tweener lob over Khachanov’s head to break serve.

The 21st seed battled hard throughout to make inroads against Alcaraz, but the sixth seed always seemed to have the answer.

^{Photo Credit: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images}
Khachanov made 35 unforced errors, which did not help his cause. But part of that was because Alcaraz forced him to go for more with his own play. Khachanov is one of the biggest hitters on the ATP Tour, but his power, depth and spin did not seem to bother the Spaniard.

Alcaraz hit 37 winners compared to just 19 for the 26-year-old. Khachanov broke for the first and final time in the third set, but the Spaniard got it right back with his stunning tweener.

Alcaraz needed six match points to complete his win, but he finished the job when Khachanov was unable to put a backhand passing shot in play. The 19-year-old will now turn his attention to Zverev, whom he defeated just weeks ago in the Mutua Madrid Open final.

Zverev leads the pair’s ATP Head2Head series 2-1, but Alcaraz has significantly improved since his two losses against the German last year. At the Caja Magica, he lost just four games against Zverev to lift the trophy.

Rafael Nadal was happy to battle through a tough five-set challenge on Sunday against Felix Auger-Aliassime at Roland Garros, but the Spaniard knows it will only get tougher.

Next up for the 13-time champion will be World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who has handed the lefty two of his three losses at the clay-court major.

“I didn’t play these kind of matches for the past three months, so [it is] going to be a big challenge for me. Of course he already won I think [his] past nine matches in a row, winning in Rome and now winning here in straight sets every match. Probably he will be confident,” Nadal said. “I know how my situation is and I accept it well. I’m going to fight for it.”

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It is easy to forget that Nadal missed a month-and-a-half after the BNP Paribas Open due to a stress fracture in one of his ribs. Then after a quarter-final showing at the Mutua Madrid Open, the Spaniard lost in the third round at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia while visibly struggling due to his long-term foot injury.

For those reasons, Nadal said he “can’t complain much”.

“I am in [the] quarter-finals of Roland Garros. Two weeks and a half ago, even if I had good hopes, positive hopes after Rome, I [didn’t even] know if I would be able to be here,” Nadal said. “So just enjoying the fact that I am here for one more year. And being honest, every match that I play here, I don’t know if [it is] going to be my last match here in Roland Garros in my tennis career. That’s my situation now.”

Nadal explained that it was a “tough process” dealing with his reoccurring foot injury. In recent weeks he has explained that the injury is something that will not go away.

“That’s why I am just trying to enjoy as much as possible and fight as much as I can to keep living the dream that is [to] keep playing tennis and be back in a very advanced round of Roland Garros, playing against the World No. 1,” Nadal said. “Let’s see. I hope to be able to give myself a chance to play at the highest level possible.”

Nadal is now a jaw-dropping 109-3 at Roland Garros, where he will face Djokovic for the 10th time and 59th time overall. Although Djokovic leads their ATP Head2Head series 30-28, Nadal has claimed seven of their nine meetings on the Parisian terre battue.

The Spaniard is well aware that taking out Djokovic, who has not lost a set through four matches, will be difficult. But he is not going to do anything different than usual ahead of this matchup. Instead, the lefty’s process will be simple.

“Have some stretching, my physio. Then eat something probably,” Nadal said, cracking a smile. “Have some sleep. Have a good practice tomorrow and rest tomorrow afternoon. That’s it. Nothing special.”

Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski continued to bring their best form to the Roland Garros clay on Sunday when they cruised past all-American duo Mackenzie McDonald and Tommy Paul in the third round.

The Dutch-British pairing struck 32 winners to McDonald and Paul’s 12 in a 6-3, 6-2 victory as they charged to their second Grand Slam quarter-final of the year. Koolhof and Skupski, who currently lead the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Team Rankings after picking up four titles in 2022, have dropped just one set in Paris so far.

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The sixth seeds face a tough test in the last eight, however, where fourth seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos await. The Spanish-Argentine team beat Jonny O’Mara and Jackson Withrow 6-1, 6-1 to advance to the quarter-finals at Roland Garros for the first time in three attempts.

Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer came good in the deciding set to prevail in their third-round meeting with seventh seeds Tim Puetz and Michael Venus. Arevalo and Rojer ran out 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 winners to advance to their maiden Grand Slam quarter-final together. The 12th-seeded Dutch-El Salvadorian pairing is chasing a third tour-level title of the year in Paris.

Arevalo and Rojer will next face Rafael Matos and David Vega Hernandez after they overcame Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(6). Matos and Vega Hernandez are making their Grand Slam debut as a team at Roland Garros, and they held their nerve to clinch a deciding set tie-break against their Belgian opponents. The Brazilian-Spanish pair has already enjoyed success on clay this year, lifting a maiden tour-level trophy in Marrakech in April.

Novak Djokovic continues to deal in straight-sets victories at Roland Garros.

A high-quality fourth-round performance took the top seed past Diego Schwartzman at the clay-court Grand Slam in Paris on Sunday afternoon. The World No. 1 saved seven break points while converting six of his own in a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 victory to set a quarter-final showdown with 13-time champion Rafael Nadal or Felix Auger-Aliassime in the French capital.

After easing past Yoshihito Nishioka, Alex Molcan and Aljaz Bedene in his opening three rounds in Paris, Djokovic produced another convincing display to see off the threat of the 15th seed Schwartzman. The World No. 1 required five sets to overcome the Argentine in the pair’s previous meeting at Roland Garros in 2017, but his all-around level this time around was such that Schwartzman was unable to drag the top seed into another drawn-out battle.

The win means Djokovic is now 16-0 in fourth-round matches at the clay-court Grand Slam, and it moves the two-time champion into a 13th straight quarter-final in Paris. Daniil Medvedev, Nadal, Hubert Hurkacz, and Holger Rune are the other players left in the draw that are yet to drop a set at this year’s tournament.

The early signs on Court Suzanne Lenglen suggested a tight encounter in store for an energetic Parisian crowd. Djokovic fended off two break points to hold in the third game as Schwartzman proved typically difficult to break down in the opening exchanges, but those opportunities proved to be as good as it got for the Argentine in the first set. Djokovic broke twice to ease to the opening set as his return game began to fire.

A change of tactics from Schwartzman brought some respite early in the second set. The Argentine attempted to quell the flow of winners from the Djokovic racquet by increasing the aggression on his own groundstrokes, and the 15th seed soon found himself 3-0 up as the Serbian momentarily lost his way.

The revival was short-lived, however, as Djokovic raised his level to reel off seven games in a row with a stunning display full of clean hitting, clever drop shots and relentless defence that left Schwartzman again scrambling for a foothold in the match.

Schwartzman had showcased his trademark resilience in coming back from two sets down to defeat Jaume Munar in the second round, but the Argentine was unable to exert enough consistent pressure on his opponent to threaten a similar feat against Djokovic. After the Serbian had stormed to the second set, the World No. 1 made his move by breaking in the sixth game of the third, showing some delightful touches at the net on his way to a two-hour, 15-minute win.

The triumph improves Djokovic’s ATP Head2Head series lead over Schwartzman to 7-0 and improves his match record at Roland Garros to 85-15. Only Nadal (108) has won more matches at the second major of the year.