![\"France's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/France-s-Richard-Gasquet---AP-_1748541155128.jpg\" "\\"France's")
France’s Richard Gasquet. (AP) <\/p>\nNew Delhi:<\/b> Thursday was a day France said hello to a rising homegrown star before bidding goodbye to one of its tennis heroes.<\/p>\n
France’s Richard Gasquet. (AP) <\/p>\n
Emotions were already running high at Roland Garros after France No.1 Arthur Fils braved a back injury to win in five sets on Court Suzanne-Lenglen early in the day but they took a trip down memory lane soon after when Richard Gasquet ended his 23-year career with a straight sets loss to top-ranked Jannik Sinner at Philippe-Chatrier.<\/p>\n
In one of the most dramatic matches of the day, the 20-year-old Fils, the 14th seed, seemed to initially be well in control of the match against Jaume Munar after taking the first two sets 7-6(3), 7-6(4).<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t an easy match and the players seemed to be well matched but the Frenchman\u2019s athleticism seemed to be giving him a slight edge. But things changed when Fils picked up a back injury during the second set tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
Even though he was two sets up, he was struggling to move on court. He won just two games as Munar took the third and fourth sets 6-2, 6-0. At this point, many wondered why Fils was continuing to play as he might have been doing further harm to himself.<\/p>\n
But the French youngster kept at it and in the fifth set as the medicines and the pickle juice started to kick in, he got back in the mix.<\/p>\n
From a break down, he started moving better and then adopted an ultra-aggressive approach to take the set and the match.<\/p>\n
Fils celebrated winning the fifth set by ripping off his shirt in front of the raucous home crowd. He later revealed that he was inspired by a fellow Frenchman, not Gasquet, but the 38-year-old French veteran Monfils, who had come from two sets down in his opening match of the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in the five set and I was thinking of Gael,\u201d Fils said on court. \u201cGael had to turn around a lot of matches in five sets. So I thought, Arthur, this is yours. You have to do the same. Go for it. I don\u2019t really have a lot of words. It\u2019s thanks to you guys. Even if I was leading two sets to zero… I knew it was very physical. I entered the 2nd set tiebreak not feeling very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cBut I told myself that it\u2019s a 5-set match. Even if you lose the next two sets, there\u2019s always a 5th set. I said that to my box. That I\u2019ll focus on the 5th set and we\u2019ll see what happens. It all went well in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Into the third round for the first time, Fils will next meet Andrey Rublev, who beat Adam Walton 7-6(1), 6-1, 7-6(5).<\/p>\n
But the focus soon shifted to Sinner vs Gasquet. The match went as everyone thought it would (with Sinner winning in three) but there were the moments of magic that reminded many of Gasquet\u2019s genius and why he was highly regarded right from him time on the junior circuit.<\/p>\n
Many will mourn the end of the road for one of most beautiful one-handed backhands in the game. It set him apart and his general athleticism made him a joy to watch. With Gasquet, there never was a dull moment on the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve thought a lot about this day, you hope it never comes, but today is it,\u201d the 38-year-old Gasquet told the crowd in French while he was being feted by the tournament for his extraordinary career. \u201cI can\u2019t dream of anything better than standing on this incredible court, the most beautiful court in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI couldn\u2019t dream of a better ending than having my last match on this court. I will keep loving tennis until the end of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd that had packed the show court, roared its approval for a player who was once ranked as high as world No.7 and made three Grand Slam semi-finals. Perhaps he was unlucky to play in the era of the Big Three \u2014 Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic \u2014 but then that is the way.<\/p>\n
France, however, will hope that his journey will inspire a whole new generation. Fils might argue, it already has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Delhi: Thursday was a day France said hello to a rising homegrown star before bidding goodbye to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[11678,2000,299,36,4718,19907,15172,1068],"class_list":{"0":"post-142053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-arthur-fils","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-jannik-sinner","13":"tag-richard-gasquet","14":"tag-roland-garros","15":"tag-tennis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114592513136531838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}