Matteo Arnaldi sent Stefanos Tsitsipas out of Roland Garros 2026 on Thursday evening, winning their second-round match 7-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 and moving into the third round. The Italian world No. 80 closed the match in four sets as the men’s second round was completed in Paris.
It was the kind of result Arnaldi could have pictured only after putting one memory behind him. Two years ago at Roland-Garros, he lost to Tsitsipas in four sets in their only previous meeting, a defeat that made this victory feel less like a surprise than a reversal. Tsitsipas arrived as a former Roland-Garros finalist, but the match slipped away after Arnaldi took the opening tiebreak 7-2 and then held off the Greek player’s response in the middle sets.
The scoreboard told the story cleanly enough. Arnaldi won the first-set breaker, dropped the second set 5-7, then took control with a 6-3 third set before finishing with a 6-2 fourth. Against a player who has twice reached Grand Slam finals in Paris, he stayed steady after the one set Tsitsipas managed to pull back, and that steadiness carried him through the finish.
The result also carried a bit of symmetry. The same court that had once sent Arnaldi away from Tsitsipas two years ago now sent Tsitsipas home, with the Italian earning the right to keep playing while the former finalist left the tournament behind. For Arnaldi, the win was not just a ranking-line upset over a more decorated opponent; it was a direct answer to the one match that had defined their brief head-to-head.
Next comes Belgium’s Raphaël Collignon in the third round on Saturday, after Collignon knocked out fifth seed Ben Shelton in straight sets. That gives Arnaldi a different kind of test, but the more immediate fact is simpler: after beating Tsitsipas, he has already gone further than he did in their first meeting and now has a place in the weekend round of Roland Garros 2026.
