Flavio Cobolli "almost sh** my pants" before closing out Roland Garros fourth-round win

Flavio Cobolli looked to get off the court in under three hours Monday at Roland Garros, when he went up 5-1 in the fourth set of his fourth-round match with Zachary Svajda.

Then the weight of the moment set in.

Svajda valiantly reeled off the next five games, as the No. 10 seed was broken twice when serving for the contest—missing a match point at 5-4 in the process. Cobolli then lost a mini break at 5-4 in the tiebreak, but held his nerve to avoid being pushed to a deciding set.

Speaking with Caroline Garcia on court following the victory, Cobolli was candid about how he was feeling when his lead slipped away.

“The only thing that I understood today is that the match is never done. I almost sh\\ my pants,” he told the Court Philippe Chatrier crowd.

“Now I’m happy but I’m still nervous. I have to recover a bit now.”

Expanding in press, Cobolli said, “I think when the match is almost done, you start to think of it, and that's the problem with my character, because I don't like to think a bit. I just want to play my best tennis possible. But if I think, especially if I'm nervous, I start to play a different tennis, and of course the Chatrier is not easy for everyone. So I think also the court was tough.”

The 24-year-old was the only man to reach the round of 16 without dropping a set in a drawn blown wide up with the seven Top 10 seeds failing to reach the second week—including world No. 1 Jannik Sinner and three-time title holder Novak Djokovic. Cobolli has matched his best career major run, having advanced to the final eight at Wimbledon last summer.

“It's for sure my favorite Grand Slam to play, because we (are) born on clay, and we have best feeling with the surface as Italians,” he shared.

Two of Cobolli’s countrymen look to join him in the quarterfinal stage, as childhood friend Matteo Berrettini and Matteo Arnaldi were due on court later Monday. The Rome native has 13 wins across this year’s European clay swing, having ousted Alexander Zverev in the Munich semifinals and adding a quarterfinal showing in Madrid with another Top 10 victory over Daniil Medvedev.

Standing between him and the semifinals will be the winner of fourth-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime and Alejandro Tabilo.

Cobolli later returned to Chatrier for a ceremony celebrating Paris Saint-Germain’s second consecutive Champions League title. Ousmane Dembele, Désiré Doué, Warren Zaïre Emery and Bradley Barcola stepped out for the occasion with the trophy in hand, with the newly-minted French Open quarterfinalist enjoying a group photo-op.