But now he has gone and raised expectations by upsetting fifth-seeded Daniil Medvedev, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-3, on Monday to advance to the quarterfinals in Paris.
“I always thought that, to me, to play well on the clay I needed hot, lively conditions,” said de Minaur, whose best Grand Slam results have come on bouncy, quick hard courts. “But, you know, this whole tournament has proven otherwise, right? It’s been a complete shock to the system, to everything I ever believed in. Now the toughest thing is dealing with my team because obviously they’ve got bragging rights, and they give me a lot of slack for me complaining all these years of my level on the clay.”
De Minaur grinned at that, and he earned his giddiness Monday. He was the lone gate crasher on a chalky day that saw the last American man standing, 12th-seeded Taylor Fritz, fall to No. 7 seed Casper Ruud, 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. The quarterfinals will bring Ruud a rematch of last year’s final against defending champion and top seed Novak Djokovic.
Fritz was the first American man to reach the fourth round at Roland Garros since 2020 and was seeking his first quarterfinal appearance at the French Open. But Ruud, a two-time finalist at Roland Garros with an ATP Tour-leading 21 wins on clay this season, rallied from 1-5 down in the first-set tiebreaker to show he wouldn’t fold easily.
Even after Fritz took the second set, Ruud was moving so well and pinning Fritz in the corners so often that he battled back and won a messy third set after Fritz broke his serve early.
“I just told myself, ‘Time to step up.’ [I was] going to do my best to just get into the zone and stay there,” Ruud said.
Djokovic might have been telling himself the same thing when he won his second five-set match in a row, this one a 6-1, 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory over Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo that left him with an injured right knee and a sliver of doubt as to whether he will be able to keep playing.
“Good thing about the Slam is that you have a day between that will allow hopefully the healing process to happen more efficiently for me,” Djokovic said. “That’s it. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow or after tomorrow if I’ll be able to step out on the court and play. You know, I hope so. Let’s see what happens.”
If he is able to face Ruud, the 37-year-old Serb will do so as the record holder for match wins at Grand Slams: He reached 370 on Monday. Roger Federer retired with 369.
Djokovic said his knee has been irking him for some time, but he tweaked it significantly enough early in the second set Monday that he needed anti-inflammatory medication to finish the match.
“I was not able to change directions the way I wanted. I was not able to run on many of the drop shots he played. And he saw it,” he said. “Francisco saw it, and so he played a lot of drop shots where most of them, I just looked at and that’s it. Didn’t move.”
It took about 45 minutes for the medicine to kick in, after which Djokovic looked like his old self — or, rather, his young self — and pulled some stupendous stuff out of his suffering. With Cerundolo serving in the fifth set, the Argentine hit a passing shot so far to Djokovic’s left that he had to extend into near splits while sliding to reach it, then ended up splayed on his belly, legs and arms flung wide. Djokovic had just one thing to do then, naturally: He smiled and mimicked a swimming motion with his arms on the clay as Cerundolo clapped.
For the moment, it was all fun and games. But Djokovic dedicated a good amount of time after the match to talking about court conditions — the same discussion de Minaur was having — following a week of rain in Paris and how that may have contributed to his injury. He said he has requested that groundskeepers sweep the courts more often than at every set break but has been denied.
“Because of the drier conditions and sun and warmer conditions, it affects the clay in such a way that, you know, it becomes very slippery,” Djokovic said. “So the injury that I had today with the knee happened exactly because of that, because I slipped, and I slide a lot. I mean, everyone slides on clay, but I slipped way too many times.”
The women’s quarterfinals will feature familiar faces as well.
Second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka beat No. 22 seed Emma Navarro, 6-2, 6-3, and fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina defeated No. 15 seed Elina Svitolina, 6-4, 6-3, to join top-seeded Iga Swiatek and No. 3 seed Coco Gauff in the final eight. That means the top four women’s seeds will compete in the French Open quarterfinals for the first time since 2013.
Sabalenka plays unseeded Mirra Andreeva next for a shot at her seventh consecutive Grand Slam semifinal appearance. Andreeva, a Russian who turned 17 in April, defeated the last French player standing, Varvara Gracheva, 7-5, 6-2.
Andreeva joined Gauff (in 2021) and Amanda Anisimova (in 2019) as the only women’s players since 2006 to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam before turning 18. She goes, as a young prodigy might, by feel — perhaps to the chagrin of her coach, 1994 Wimbledon champion Conchita Martínez.
“I’m just playing, kind of. Even when, for example, we talk about the match, about the plan, about tactics, I listen, but honestly I don’t remember anything after,” Andreeva said. “I don’t have anything in my head when we start playing the match. So I just go there and I’m like: ‘Well, we’ll see. I’ll figure it out.’ That’s how I always play.”
