“Ben’s an incredible player, man, and he comes up with the goods a lot. It was definitely a tough match,” Tiafoe said. “But I think, I’m not just saying this because we just spoke in the locker room, but I think the level was a lot higher this year than we played last year throughout the five sets.”
Tiafoe went on to reach the semifinals for the second time in three years, where he came up just short in a heartbreaker to fellow American Taylor Fritz.
1. Carlos Alcaraz def. Jannik Sinner, Roland Garros SF
The last time that Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz played at a Grand Slam tournament before 2024, at the 2022 US Open, they combined to play a titantic five-hour, five-setter under the lights inside Arthur Ashe Stadium that finished at 2:50 a.m. in a new latest-ever tournament record.
How could they possibly follow that up on Paris’ terre battue, a spot in the Roland Garros final at stake? Though an hour shorter, the reprise was no less thrilling, and Alcaraz came from two-sets-to-one down to win, 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, in four hours and nine minutes.
The win, Alcaraz’s second of three against Sinner in 2024, was even sweeter after the Spaniard famously succumbed to a bout of cramps in a four-sett loss to Novak Djokovic in the same round a year earlier.
“I told myself that it’s gonna be a long match. It is a Grand Slam, that he had to win two more sets. So it was going to be a long match, so I have to stay positive, to stay there,” Alcaraz later said.
