4-Hour-43-Minute Marathon at Suzanne-Lenglen: Casper Ruud Overcomes Tommy Paul 3-2 From Two Sets Down to Reach Round Four

The second great "two-sets-down comeback" story of the same day at Roland Garros 2026 was written at Court Suzanne-Lenglen. 15-seed 27-year-old Casper Ruud defeated 24-seed 29-year-old Tommy Paul 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(7), 7-5 to leave behind one of the toughest matches of the third round and advance to the fourth round. The match lasted exactly 4 hours 43 minutes; with Joao Fonseca also overturning Novak Djokovic from two sets down on the same day, Paris hosted two historic "comeback" scenes in a single day.

At the start of the match, the game flowed at Tommy Paul's rhythm. After the American won the first set 6-4 with a clear scoreline, he established visible dominance at Suzanne-Lenglen by taking a 7-4 lead in the second-set tie-break. Up to that point, Paul caught dominant positions behind the first serve from the baseline while Ruud, despite his identity as a clay-court specialist, struggled to find his rhythm. The Norwegian completely changed the encounter from the third set onward: increasing waiting time and turning to deeper ball strokes, Ruud won the third set 6-4 to return to the match.

In the fourth set, too, the picture became dramatic. The set went to a tie-break, and as the two players chased each other point by point inside, Ruud was more decisive and took the set to the decider with a 9-7 tie-break. In the fifth and deciding set, the Norwegian kept his composure, placed his forehands cleanly to the depth of the court in critical moments, and left his opponent behind with a 7-5 scoreline. The moment closing the match point came with a dramatic coincidence: Paul's second serve at 133 km/h stuck to his opponent's body, but the American sent his forehand long on the third shot and surrendered the match with an unforced error. This error earned Ruud the fourth-round ticket.

The statistics reveal how balanced the match was. Looking at the total points distribution, Tommy Paul won 178 points while Casper Ruud won 176 — meaning the American actually took 2 more points but lost the match. The explanation of this paradox lies in the rally-length table: in short rallies of 1-4 shots, Paul led 113 to 109; in long rallies of 9+ shots, he led 20 to 14. But Ruud established a clear lead of 53 to 45 in medium-length 5-8 shot rallies — meaning he stayed more decisive in the critical zone. The Norwegian also showed dominance on the serve side: he passed his opponent with 17 aces against 14, climbing above Paul's 52 percent first-serve accuracy with a 63 percent rate. He only fell behind in the double-fault count (Ruud 9, Paul 5).

This victory was a success preserving the consistency of Ruud's career — the clay-court specialist who has reached the Roland Garros final three times (losing to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and Novak Djokovic in 2023). The Norwegian, currently 16th on the ATP rankings, stands a step ahead of many rivals at this level with his 14 ATP single titles. Tommy Paul, meanwhile, lost his chance to reach the fourth round for three consecutive years; the American had been taking important steps on clay recently but the magic of Paris pushed him off the stage once again. Ruud will now think about the next opponent on the draw in the fourth round; the tennis world, on the other hand, will long talk about the day of May 29 in Paris that wrote "two historic comebacks from two sets down".