French 14th seed Arthur Fils defied a back injury and revealed he was inspired by idol Gael Monfils as he battled to defeat Spain’s Jaume Munar in five sets and keep home hopes alive at Roland Garros.
Fils looked to be a in a comfortable position when he took the first two sets on tiebreaks on Court Suzanne-Lenglen but then struggled with his movement as Munar fought back.
The Spaniard rolled through the fourth set without dropping a game and was then a break up in the fifth, but Fils staged a dramatic comeback to win 7-6 7-6 2-6 0-6 6-4 in almost four and a half hours.
Fils, who had looked to be on the brink of retirement, also faced three break points at 4-4 0-40 in the fifth set but saved them all to hold in a nine-minute game before breaking Munar to win the match.
The 20-year-old Fils is the highest-ranked French player in the Roland Garros draw and is now through to the third round of the French Open for the first time in his career.
He celebrated winning a wild fifth set by ripping off his shirt on Suzanne-Lenglen in front of the raucous home crowd .
And Fils then revealed he had been inspired by the popular 38-year-old French veteran Monfils, who came from two sets down in his opening match of the tournament, as he has done throughout his career.
“I was in the five set and I was thinking of Gael,” Fils said on court. “Gael 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.”
He continued: “I don’t really have a lot of words. It’s 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.
“But I told myself that it’s a 5 set match. Even if you lose the next two sets, there’s always a 5th set. I said that to my box. That I’ll focus on the 5th set and we’ll see what happens. It all went well in the end.”
Fils will play either 17th seed Andrey Rublev or Australia’s Adam Walton in the third round, and could face World No 1 Jannik Sinner in the fourth round.
