14:11
The sprinklers are on behind me. There is not a soul in sight. And those two men laid it all out for our entertainment. Are you not entertained? John is ner, Sam Query, Caroline Wniaki, Sloan Stevens, Adam Luco. You want to watch it again? I think we should watch it again. Is this tournament scripted to just have the maximum amount of deciding sets and tie breaks as possible? This is I'm exhausted and I didn't swing a racket. Sam, I think everyone's exhausted. I mean, the stadium's still full of people listening to our nulli right now with the postmatch speech.
I cannot believe what we just witnessed in this match. It was truly incredible. Let's get to the highlights. First set, every single set was incredibly close. First set on takes it in a first set, tie break, seven to four in the buster. He gets up on Francis in the second set. What does Bo do like he always does? He fights back. takes the second set in the tiebreaker. He's fired up. AJ Devons is in the crown watch. And if he's fired up, Joe Noah as well. Fo at this stage has all the momentum after winning that second set tiebreaker. He wins the third set and he starts the fourth set off extremely well and it looks like he was in complete command.
Yeah. You know, one of the best things about this match too was the crowd. Thafo was in command in that fourth set. The crowd then got behind Arnaldi, right? They wanted to see a fifth set. And then this fourth set here goes to a tiebreaker, right? You think Tafo is maybe going to close it out, but it's Arnaldi digging deep, finding that extra gear to take the fourth set in a breaker. Then the crowd kind of switched back. Then the crowd wanted Toafa to win. Then they'd go back and they'd want Arnaldi to win. They switched a hand they excuse me, they exchanged a handful of breaks late in this fifth set. The momentum really switched every few minutes it seemed like late in this
fifth set. Yeah, it absolutely did. Fo, this was one of those stages where Fo got the break back at 43. Watch this point. This incredible effort by Francis trying to I mean, just talk about get this 5 hours into this match. It's absolutely incredible. Hats off to Big Fo. What an absolute warrior out there. But he does go on to get broken at love that game. This is to me the craziest point of the whole match right here. This defense from Arnaldi is absolutely incredible. Gosh, and it ends with that. Just so tough for Big B. You see how much it means on how exhausted Big Fo was. Match is over right there with big serve. You got to remember Bo was up in that fourth set. 4-1 serving 4015.
Yeah. And then he also served for the match in that fourth set is 54 as well. The 31st five setter of the tournament. Arnaldi into his first major quarterfinal of his career. Just to put into perspective that match on Shatriier when we had center and Alcarez that was 5 hours and 29 minutes. This was 5 hours and 26 minutes. We are guaranteeing an Italian into the semifinals. Three of them still left with Arnaldi, Barrettini, and Kaboli. And this is the first time no American man or woman has reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garos since 2017. Afterwards, Arnaldi trying to catch his breath. Wow. one of the matches of our lives.
I don't know how I'm standing here to be honest. I played so much this tournament. I haven't played in so long. Like this year I haven't played much. I was injured for the foot. So I don't know. I just it's a dream to be honest to be here because it's for first match it was four hours, second three and a half, third five hours, today five and a half. And it's I don't know like today in the third set I was so tired but you know we live to play these matches we I always dreamed to play you know a match in Rangaros at night like this these battles against someone like Francis like I think at one point it wasn't tennis it was just something else you know you were just playing with everything you had you know the there
had to be a winner. And uh fortunately I was it was me tonight. But you know the this is definitely the best match I ever played. And uh I mean also like the crowd and everyone that stayed here it's it's amazing. It's like one and I am. So it's I mean so many things that it's unreal. So I'm just you know I'm just happy that I'm standing here. The clock said 108. The score said there was a winner, but everyone here and everyone there know that the players left something behind. This is sometimes bigger than a sport. It's a test of will. You get taken to the darkness and you see who emerges. What did those guys just go through? Explain to everyone at home that's never experienced that. And I don't know if
you guys experienced that. What is left in their tank? Look for Thafo, he's walking in the locker room right now devastated, right? He served for the match. He had that big lead in the fourth set. That fifth set was back and forth. You're everyone's heart goes out for him, right? That was a tremendous battle out there. We saw him dive on the ground late in the fifth set. For Arnaldi, he just mentioned he's gone five sets multiple times already in this tournament. He's got to come back and play another match. But that is one of those matches that you always remember as a player. The people in the crowd, that's when next week, you know, the
kids at school. I was wrong. I was at that Tafo Arnaldi match that went to 1:15 in the morning. It was epic. And so it's a bummer. There has to there's got to be a winner. There's got to be a loser tonight. It was Arnaldi, but Big Fo should hold his head high. That effort was incredible from him. Yeah, Arnaldi said it best. He said at some point it became more than a tennis match out there. I mean, you might go throughout the course of a year and you might, if you're lucky, you play two matches like that where you just get embroiled in this unbelievable contest with your opponent. You're just battling back and forth, back and forth. It's exactly what they did out there today.
It was truly incredible. Um, and I guess you can just hope that you both play your absolute best, you know, when it gets to that 3, 4 hour, 5 hour mark, and they both did. It was truly incredible drama out there. Yeah. I mean, this is what you practice for, right? when nobody else wants to be out there. These are the moments to play in a big stadium in a big moment and play in the most important tournament of the year, one of them, you know, and then there it's just too bad that there had to be a loser today because they both deserve to win. It was such high level and it was going back and forth as you guys were saying. And I mean, too bad that Francis didn't go
through because I thought he deserved it there in the fourth set. Definitely. Obviously, this is heartbreaking. This is something like he won't sleep tonight and we'll both neither probably neither of them will sleep tonight. One will just have so much adrenaline and energy and I just it's something we've all dealt with. We've all been there where we just couldn't like just so close but yet so far away. And I think for Francis to take all the positives away from here with you know working with Mark Kovac now his attitude was totally different like he was scrambling. We saw him on the floor all of the things that he was trying to do to just keep himself in the match and unfortunately he couldn't win
tonight but I think he's made a lot of improvements. And so I think you can just be really proud of that. I You learn the test of a man. You learn what they're capable of. We saw them taken to the absolute edge and they responded time after time. Everyone in attendance couldn't leave. Joe Kim Noah was there the entire time. AJ Deans was there the entire time. Absolutely glued in. We were here living and dying with every single point. 5 hours and 26 minutes. I'll say this. If is there any doubt that tennis players are the greatest athletes in the world? I mean, I think if this tournament doesn't prove it, then nothing will. And that's in my mind, it's just incredible.
I look, Francis Tiano went five sets with her coach, then he went five sets with Faria, and then went five sets with Raldi. I mean, basically spent 14 hours on the court in the last five days.
