Six things to know about Gaston’s Day 6 shocker over Wawrinka

In a tournament full of surprises there was another big one at Roland Garros on Friday: unheralded 20-year-old French wild card Hugo Gaston stunned Stan Wawrinka on Court Suzanne Lenglen, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0.

Here are six things to know about Gaston’s Day 6 shocker over the No. 16 seed and 2015 champion:

At No. 239, Gaston is the lowest-ranked man to reach the fourth round of Roland Garros in 18 years. No. 283-ranked Arnaud di Pasquale, another Frenchman, reached the fourth round in 2002—also as a wild card—before falling in four sets to No. 2 seed Marat Safin, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2.

Gaston is the lowest-ranked player to beat Wawrinka at a Grand Slam, by a lot. Before this, the lowest-ranked player to beat the Swiss at a major was No. 165 Juan Martin del Potro in the second round of Wimbledon in 2016. The lowest-ranked player to beat him at Roland Garros was No. 67 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the first round in 2018.

Gaston had never won a tour-level match coming into Roland Garros but he’s won three in a row now. He came into Roland Garros with an 0-2 career record at the tour level, falling in the first round at the ATP 250 in Marseille in 2018 (to Stefano Travaglia) and in the first round of the Australian Open earlier this year (to Jaume Munar).

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Gaston’s win over the No. 17-ranked Wawrinka was his first Top-50 win in the first time he’s even played a Top-50 player. Before this, the highest-ranked player he’d ever faced was No. 51 Juan Ignacio Londero, beating the Argentine in the qualies of the ATP Masters 1000 event in Paris last year.

Wawrinka had won 17 of his last 18 matches against left-handers at Grand Slams. His only loss in that stretch came against the king of lefties, Rafael Nadal, in the 2017 Roland Garros final.

Gaston was the only Frenchman through to the third round of the 18 that began. And now he’s through to the fourth round of a major for the first time, where he’ll face No. 3 Dominic Thiem.