Sonego drops Fritz in a tie-break for history

Lorenzo Sonego entered the history of Roland Garrros this Friday. The Italian, world number 46, defeated the American Taylor Fritz (30) and reached the round of 16 for the first time in his career. What will go on to the milestone record will be the tie-break of the third set, a roller coaster in which he managed to survive and close the match at 19-17 after 36 minutes (7-6 (5) and 6-3 in the first two sleeves).

Never has a tiebreaker lasted so long, 36 points neither more nor less, in the Parisian Grand Slam, although it is not the longest of all the major tournaments on the calendar in terms of total points.. Those were Börg and Lall at Wimbledon in 1973 (20-18 for the Swede), Ivanisevic and Nestor at the US Open in 1993 (20-18 for the Croatian) and Tsonga and Roddick in Australia in 2007 (20-18 for the French). The one between Sonego and Fritz ties with another registered at Wimbledon 2014 between Isner and Nieminen (19-17 for the American).

The absolute record, however, remains held by Benjamin Balleret and Guillaume Couillar, who went to 70 points (36-34 for the former) in an insane battle at a Futures in Florida (USA) in 2013. The second is a 25-23 from Evgeny Tyurnev to Danilo Petrovic in another Futures played in 2016 in Kazakhstan.