"You figure that you would at least give it a go and play a set" - More criticism over Matteo Arnaldi's Roland Garros withdrawal released

Matteo Arnaldi was one of many surprises at the 2026 French Open. While top names fell, he battled and fought his way through the rounds to reach a first ever Grand Slam semi-final. Due to illness, he was forced to pull out of his supposed contest against Flavio Cobolli, which has left Brett Connors bemused.

Arnaldi has played a ridiculous amount of tennis on the way to this point for a historic Italian showdown. Coming into the tournament as the world number 104, he shot up the order to world number 34, an incredible 70 place rise.

After defeating Tallon Griekspoor and Stefanos Tsitsipas in four sets, he came back from 2-1 losing positions against Raphael Collignon and most impressively last year’s quarter-finalist Frances Tiafoe to confirm a spot in the last-eight. This was a lot shorter. Matteo Berrettini was forced to retire from the match after a set and a bit of action.

Arnaldi got safe passageway through to the semi-finals where a tie against Cobolli was set to be in store on Court Philippe Chatrier. This never occurred. Arnaldi struggled with a virus and was unable to take to the court.

He made the cruel decision to withdraw and throw away any chance of reaching and challenging for a Grand Slam title, and a hugely unlikely one at that. He was joined by Cobolli in a press conference confirming that news before the 10th seed stepped on court anyway for a practice session to give the crowd something to watch.

The son of former world number and eight-time Grand Slam champion Jimmy Connors, Brett Connors was left slightly confused why Arnaldi did not at least try and compete. After all the tennis he had played to reach this stage, a different excuse may have been more believable from his perspective.

“[Matteo] Arnaldi, up until the semis, had been on court for 17 hours,” Connors said on Advantage Connors. “I think it’s the most anyone has ever been on court for the semi-finals since they started keeping the stats in 1990 something. If he had come out and said ‘I’m exhausted, my back has given out’, you probably would believe it.”

It irked Connors that the Italian was well enough to go to the press conference but not compete. “Not that you don’t believe he didn’t feel good, but the fact he got out of bed and was there giving press and hanging out does not make for great optics.

“You’re like, if you are okay enough to get to site and do all that, you figure that you would at least give it a go and play a set and see how it goes. He said it was at 1am that he felt bad, but they didn’t play until 8pm the next night. That’s not 24 hours, but it’s a decent amount of time.”

He believed his decision not to play had a detrimental effect on his fellow countryman come the final. “I think it hurt Cobolli; he came out and did not look great right away,” Connors commented.

“It looked like it was going to be Zverev in straights; we were thinking this could be quick and this isn’t going to be much entertainment. He started getting going once he got into it, but I think not having that semi-final match hurt him a little bit in the final.”

Cobolli did bounce back from a first set mauling, reducing a one-set deficit twice enroute to forcing a fifth set showdown, in which he was no match for the world number three who was finally able to break his Grand Slam duct in Paris.