Arthur Fils has his Warrior Moment; Au revoir, Richard Gasquet | Roland Garros Wrap, Day 5

Stream every match from Roland Garros on the Tennis Channel app, each day after 11 p.m. ET. 3 to Stream, our daily wrap of the action in Paris, highlights you three matches you'll want to read about—and then replay.

The first week at Roland Garros is always filled with French Epics. Buoyed by the fervent hopes of the chanting, booing, hissing and singing crowds, the home country’s players rise gloriously to the occasion on some days, and fall tragically short on others. One of these dirt wars typically ends up being among the most dramatic matches of the year.

Inevitably, though, it doesn’t end well for any of them. No French man or woman has won the title since Mary Pierce a quarter century ago. But hope springs eternal.

On Thursday we saw a new, 20-year-old French hopeful win his first Epic, and a 38-year-old veteran of many past triumphs and tragedies take his final bow.

Fils has his Warrior Moment

Arthur Fils d. Jaume Munar, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 2-6, 0-6, 6-4

👉 Stream the full match replay HERE

During the Big Three era, my friend and fellow tennis writer Peter Bodo coined the term Warrior Moment. By that, he meant a match where a talented young player proved he was also a fighter. Anyone who wanted to be a champion had to go through this trial by fire eventually.

If Fils’ five-set, four-and-a half-hour win in Lenglen on Thursday doesn’t qualify as a Warrior Moment, I’m not sure what does. Fils at 20 is touted as France’s next male star (as this piece, from Peter, explores). He’s won titles, he’s cracked the Top 15, and he’s had his best spring so far, making himself look like a legitimate rival to Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner for the first time. Yet he came to Paris this year having never won a match at his home Slam.

Now he has two, and one for the ages. And while he won with his talent today, he also won with grit. But it was touch and go for a very long time.

After edging past Munar, a clay-courter in the classic Spanish mold, in two tiebreakers in the first two sets, the bottom fell out for Fils. He lost 10 straight games, and by the end of a 6-0 fourth set, he was struggling to move. When he went down 1-3 in the fifth, he bashed a ball into the upper deck.

Was it that release of tension that saved him? In the next game, Fils broke back by grinding Munar down with corner-to-corner forehands, as he had early on, and then leveled at 3-3. From there, it was a battle of the Good Fils vs. the Gassed Fils. The good version drilled fearless forehand winners and flapped his arms for more noise from the crowd. The gassed version struggled to stand up, and when he did, he sent overheads sailing 10 feet wide.

The moment of truth came with the Frenchman serving at 4-4. When he went down 0-40, it looked like he would surely come up short. Instead, the Good Fils got off the mat, threw in a serve and volley, and cranked up the forehand machine one last time. It was just enough to get him over the finish line. He won the last point, perhaps appropriately, with a shot that clipped the net-cord and crawled over.

“This is Paris, right?!” Fils screamed to the crowd afterward, and they responded accordingly.

“The crowd really push me to win this match,” said Fils, who littered up the stat sheet with 69 winners and 84 errors. “Because I think if we are playing, I have already said it, if I was playing in Asia or whatever, not very sure that I could, first of all, finish the match.”

“And to win it, almost zero percent of chances.”

He may need that crowd to come back a few more times: Fils will play Andrey Rublev next; the winner of that will likely face Sinner.

Au revoir Richard G: Tennis will be a little less graceful without Gasquet’s backhand

Jannik Sinner d. Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-0, 6-4

👉 Stream the full match replay HERE

The world first knew him as “Richard G.” That’s what Gasquet was called when he appeared on the cover of a French tennis magazine at age 9. The editors asked if the pre-teen was “the champion France has been waiting for.” But no pressure or anything.

Was he that player? It depends exactly what France was waiting for.

If it was someone who could end the country’s long Grand Slam title drought among the men, the answer was no. Gasquet reached the Top 10 and three Grand Slam semis, but couldn’t crack the Big Three’s concrete ceiling.

But if they wanted someone who could (a) give the game a new variant of French style and flair; (b) show us one of the most elegant and watchable strokes in the sport’s history; and (c) catch fire in breathtaking fashion? Then the answer was yes.

On Thursday, 29 years after that magazine cover, Richard G played his last match. Fittingly, it took place on Chatrier, against the world’s best player in Sinner. And fittingly, it showed what was great, and what was flawed, about Gasquet’s game.

Specifically, it showed what was great and flawed about his signature shot, his one-handed backhand. The high take-back and the fly-away follow-through were still there, in all their artistic glory. At 38, Gasquet could still draw gasps from the crowd when he connected on it and fired it into a corner of the court. But just as often, it sat up and served as fodder for Sinner’s own, more lethal two-handed backhand.

Gasquet’s plight has been the plight of most players who have used one-handed backhands this century. There’s beauty and variety in the shot, but it’s a liability on returns, and it makes it harder to stand in at the baseline and take the ball on the rise, the way Sinner so easily did today. Everyone loves to a watch a one-hander, but it can make life tough: Just ask Dominic Thiem, who retired at 30, and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has dropped out of the Top 20.

“I’m really lucky to [retire] on a stage like this against the No. 1 in the world, so it’s the perfect end for me,” Gasquet said.

“I’m very happy to finish my career and not to be massacred completely.”

Au revoir Richard G: You were worth the wait.

Keys keeps the calendar-year dream alive

Madison Keys d. Katie Boulter 6-1, 6-3

👉 Stream the full match replay HERE

Madison Keys, Grand Slam specialist?

It can be a little hard to remember that Keys is the only woman with a chance to win a calendar-year Slam in 2025. The Australian Open, where she won her first major, feels like a lifetime ago.

Keys, admittedly, hasn’t done a whole lot since to remind us of that win. She has reached just one semifinal, in Indian Wells, where she was nearly double-bageled by Aryna Sabalenka.

But all has been right again so far at the year’s second Slam: Keys has played two matches and dropped just seven games. Against Katie Boulter on Thursday, her forehand was the controlling force in the match. She hit 20 winners in an hour and 19 minutes, and four of her 12 winning games came at love.

“I served well,” said Keys, who is a former semifinalist in Paris. “The biggest thing I’m happy with is that even though I didn't necessarily capitalize on all of my break points right away, being able to stay tough and stay in those games, still convert a lot of those break points I think was really important today.”

It’s probably too early for Keys, who plays fellow American Sofia Kenin next, to start wondering about another major title. But the thought seems to have crossed her mind.

“It was obviously a goal for a really long time to win a Slam,” she said. “Now that I was able to do that, I think it kind of shifts to, ‘I'd really like to do that again.’”