Fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas had to dig deep on Tuesday as he rallied from two sets down to overcome Jaume Munar in his first round match at Roland Garros.
The Greek star earned his first ever comeback from two sets down, outlasting Munar 4-6 2-6 6-1 6-4 6-4 to advance to the second round.
“Playing a best-of-five match can be very challenging and I am really happy that I will walk away from Court Suzanne-Lenglen today with a win,” said Tsitsipas after the match.
The encounter lasted three hours and 12 minutes; during which Tsitsipas ramped up his aggression and hit 36 winners in the final three sets alone.
“I don’t think I’ve ever played a match like this before,” he revealed. “The emotions and the nerves at the very beginning were not there, but [I made] slight adjustments and tried to find a way to win, a different way.
“It wasn’t working out for me in the beginning. Nothing was working… But I am really proud of myself, the effort I put in and the amount of dedication.”
The World No.6 improves to 23-9 for the truncated ATP season, third behind Novak Djokovic (32) and Andrey Rublev (26) in match wins this year. He next faces clay-court specialist Pablo Cuevas in the second round, as the Spaniard defeated Henri Laaksonen 6-1 2-6 6-4 6-2 earlier in the day.
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