Hugo Gaston was the last Frenchman to be able to reach the eighth after the third-round eliminations of Diane Parry on Friday and Léolia Jeanjean, Alizé Cornet and Gilles Simon on Saturday. For his part, Rune will face outgoing finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas (4th) to try to reach the quarter-finals.
Hugo Gaston, 74th in the world, was eliminated on Saturday in the 3rd round of Roland-Garros by the Dane Holger Rune (40th) 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, so that there will be no Tricolor in eighth of final. Gaston was the last Frenchman to be able to reach the eighth after the eliminations in the 3rd round of Diane Parry, Friday, and Léolia Jeanjean, Alizé Cornet and Gilles Simon Saturday. For his part, Rune will face outgoing finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas (4th) to try to reach the quarter-finals. At 19, Rune is participating in her third Grand Slam tournament. Until then, he had never passed the first round, neither at the US Open 2021 (beaten by Novak Djokovic), nor at the Australian Open 2022 (beaten by Soowoo Kwon).
Gaston made a name for himself by reaching the round of 16 at Roland-Garros in the fall 2020 edition: he beat 2015 winner Stan Wawrinka in the third round before losing to double finalist Dominic Thiem (2018, 2019).
No French in eighth for the second year in a row
This year, the small left-hander from Toulouse (1.73m) had overcome world number 20 Alex de Minaur in the super tie-break of the fifth set after a long four-hour fight, before dismissing without wasting time the Argentinian Pedro Cachin (153rd) 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 in just over two hours.
For the second consecutive year, there is no French in the round of 16. Before last year, when there weren’t even any in the third round, that hadn’t happened since 1891.