Matteo Berrettini was visibly devastated after being forced to retire from his French Open quarter-final match against Matteo Arnaldi. The experienced Italian was enjoying a stellar tournament, having reached the last eight on his first appearance at Roland Garros since 2021. He was just one game away from setting up an all-Italian semi-final showdown with Flavio Cobolli.
He only needed to get past Arnaldi to book his place in the final four and made the perfect start, racing ahead with two early breaks of serve. However, he was eventually beaten in a gruelling first set, which lasted 82 minutes. In the second set, the 30-year-old began to experience discomfort and called a medical timeout to receive treatment on his left hip area.
Berrettini valiantly tried to carry on, but ended up 5-2 down and was eventually forced to call it quits. He looked emotional as he weighed up his decision to retire while sitting in his chair before approaching Arnaldi’s side of the court to concede the match.
The two players shared a sporting embrace at the net, with the crowd applauding Berrettini’s efforts, before he walked away and wiped his eyes with his shirt.
Arnaldi sent a classy message to his injured rival in his on-court interview, saying: “You never want someone to end the tournament like this.
“I’m sorry for him and I hope he’s going to recover and soon it’s going to come the grass and he’s going to be very tough to play.”
Berrettini’s career has been plagued by various injury setbacks and his retirement was hugely unfortunate, given the form he had shown to reach the quarter-finals.
He recorded wins over Marton Fucsovics, Arthur Rinderknech, Francisco Comesana and Juan Manuel Cerundolo, who beat Jannik Sinner earlier in the tournament, to book his place in the last eight.
Arnaldi, meanwhile, is just one match away from playing for the French Open title despite entering the tournament ranked outside the world’s top 100.
He will be desperate to beat Cobolli in his next match to set up a final meeting with either Alexander Zverev or Jakub Mensik.
Reflecting on his incredible journey, Arnaldi said: “Unbelievable, I still can’t believe it if I think where I was one month ago, I was nearly 150 in the world.
“I’m tired, that’s for sure, but you know I train and I play tennis to play these kind of tournaments, these kind of matches. Obviously today I was a bit more tired than usual, but I’m here.”