{"id":67980,"date":"2024-05-29T21:19:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T01:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=67980"},"modified":"2024-05-29T21:19:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T01:19:03","slug":"french-open-day-4-mens-recap-former-champion-defeated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2024\/05\/29\/french-open-day-4-mens-recap-former-champion-defeated\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open Day 4 Men&#8217;s Recap: Former Champion Defeated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rain on Day 4 of the French Open meant only five men&#8217;s matches were completed. There was still a lot of entertaining tennis played, with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2024\/01\/28\/sinner-storms-back-to-defeat-medvedev-for-australian-open-title\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner<\/a>, Carlos Alcaraz and three-time Grand Slam champion <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/07\/30\/stan-wawrinka-reinvented-himself-again\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Stan Wawrinka<\/a> among those in action. This article recaps who played well, which players struggled and then names the best match of the day.<\/p>\n<h2>French Open Day 4 Men&#8217;s Recap<\/h2>\n<h4>Who Looked Good<\/h4>\n<p>Jannik Sinner won in straight sets for the second match in a row. He defeated <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/07\/24\/richard-gasquet-a-tribute-to-an-underappreciated-stalwart\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">French stalwart Richard Gasquet<\/a> 6-4 6-2 6-4. Gasquet fought admirably against the world No. 2 in slow conditions under the roof on Court Philippe-Chatrier that did not suit him. But Sinner was very solid throughout to claim his 30th win of the season.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennismajors.com\/roland-garros-news\/roland-garros-rublev-books-spot-in-third-round-764302.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrey Rublev also progressed in straight sets<\/a> on Day 4 at the French Open. The former Grand Slam quarterfinalist beat Pedro Martinez 6-3 6-4 6-3. He struck 56 winners during his very impressive performance. That will give Rublev additional confidence, as he seeks to prove he can go all the way at a Grand Slam for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>Stefanos Tsitsipas needed to work more for his victory in Paris. He was pushed hard by the German Daniel Altmaier in the final two sets, before eventually prevailing 6-3 6-2 6-7 6-4. Altmaier went into the match with a 4-3 record against Top 10 players, making this a particularly good victory for the 2021 runner-up.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"6vJOrWvoQNZ_PcMjMGqxmg\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2155208705\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'6vJOrWvoQNZ_PcMjMGqxmg',sig:'fVHieWqoyfnrQFl3jbPk2-28dRBwd5fNJ_LC2i_j0Gs=',w:'594px',h:'419px',items:'2155208705',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Who Looked Bad<\/h4>\n<p>It is rare for the winner of a match to be in this section. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/07\/16\/carlos-alcaraz-defeats-novak-djokovic-wimbledon\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz&#8217;s<\/a> French Open performance was slightly concerning. He triumphed 6-3 6-4 2-6 6-2 against Jesper De Jong but his game was somewhat wayward throughout. Although De Jong played a great third set, Alcaraz will be relieved that he was not competing against a player who could have taken advantage of his level in each set.<\/p>\n<p>Pedro Martinez may also be slightly disappointed with his performance. Although Rublev is a very tough player to face, the Spaniard&#8217;s impressive clay-court season meant he had the potential to make it more difficult for the Russian. Martinez never came close to doing that.<\/p>\n<h4>Match Of The Day<\/h4>\n<p>2015 champion Stan Wawrinka&#8217;s battle with Pavel Kotov was the best men&#8217;s match on Day 4 of the French Open. The first set went to a tiebreak after impressive serving from both players. After some tense and exciting rallies, Kotov managed to take the opening set by winning the tiebreak 7-5. There were more excellent shots by both men in the second set, including from Wawrinka&#8217;s famous one-handed backhand. However, Kotov also claimed the second set 6-4, after breaking the 39-year-old&#8217;s serve twice.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"YXImQEz8RLBw_POt4H5NjA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2154854822\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'YXImQEz8RLBw_POt4H5NjA',sig:'cA_pXG67jOzg3EVnTZrAd00LJr-MTyYS4UL6eAyLxII=',w:'594px',h:'377px',items:'2154854822',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Wawrinka then raised his level even further in the third set. At 1-1, he won five games in a row to take the contest to a fourth set. With the crowd firmly behind Wawrinka, the fourth set was the best of the match. After Wawrinka broke first, Kotov broke twice in a row and seemed to have victory sealed. However, the Swiss was not done yet and broke for a second time in the set. The fourth set went to the second tiebreak of the contest. Once again, Kotov managed to win it 7-5 to seal a 7-6 6-4 1-6 7-6 triumph.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rain on Day 4 of the French Open meant only five men&#8217;s matches were completed. There was still a lot of entertaining tennis played, with Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka among those in action. This article recaps who played well, which players struggled and then names [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4708,"featured_media":55135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,2,9],"tags":[42021,511,5729,7453,5862,12842,9931,190,115,304,12932],"class_list":["post-67980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-french-open","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","tag-2024-french-open","tag-andrey-rublev","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-daniel-altmaier","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-pavel-kotov","tag-pedro-martinez","tag-richard-gasquet","tag-stan-wawrinka","tag-stefanos-tsitsipas","tag-zizou-bergs"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}