French Open star admits ‘I almost s*** on my pants’ after late scare on court | Tennis | Sport

Flavio Cobolli got a little too honest after reaching his first Grand Slam quarter-finals. The No. 10 seed had not dropped a set on his way to the fourth round and handily took the first two over Zachary Svajda before the American started fighting back. Svajda won the third in a tiebreak, though Cobolli recovered and raced onto a 5-1 lead in the fourth.

But the Italian suddenly lost all his momentum and was broken twice while serving for the match, as Svajda won six games in a row. Cobolli recovered to claim a 6-2 6-3 6-7(3) 7-6(5) victory in a tiebreak, and then told the 15,000-strong Court Philippe-Chatrier crowd that he “almost s*** on [his] pants”.

Retired French ace Carolina Garcia came out to interview Cobolli after he reached the last eight. Garcia had been waiting a while, in case the 10th seed won in the third-set tiebreak, or capitalised on his 5-1 lead in the fourth set. But he finally got the job done after three hours and 19 minutes on court and addressed the crowd.

“That was a great battle out there. You won the first two sets a bit easier, and then the match got a bit more complicated. How happy are you with your performance and how you stayed positive and confident?” Garcia asked him.

“Merci a tous again,” Cobolli first told the crowd, before getting very candid about his fourth-set scare. “The only thing that I understood today is, the match is never done and I almost s*** on my pants. Now I’m happy, but still nervous. And yeah, I have to recover a bit now.

“I always say that this is my favourite Grand Slam and I love to play on clay in France, the crowd is unbelievable and you guys helped me a lot today to finish the match that was really important for the next round.

“I also want to say thanks to my team, I think also for them, someone s*** on the pants but we are really happy to have the chance and honour to play another match here, so I am looking forward to the next one.”

The 24-year-old now has a couple of days to recover before he faces either No. 4 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime or Chilean star Alejandro Tabilo in the quarter-finals. The top half of the draw has opened up following Jannik Sinner’s shock second-round defeat.

But there are still three Italians left in that side of the draw – Cobolli, who is into the last eight, and Matteo Berrettini and Matteo Arnaldi, who have yet to play their fourth-round matches.