Novak Djokovic will aim to reach his 15th successive French Open quarter-final on Monday after setting an unwanted Roland Garros record.
The defending champion and 24-time Grand Slam title winner made the last 16 by defeating Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti in a bruising five-set epic which concluded at 3:07 a.m. Sunday.
It was the latest ever finish at Roland Garros.
“I think certain things could have been handled differently,” said the 37- year-old Djokovic.
“There is a certain beauty in winning the match at three in the morning if it is the last of the tournament, but this wasn’t the case.”
On Monday, three-time French Open champion Djokovic faces Argentine 23rd seed Francisco Cerundolo for a place in the last eight.
Victory would give him a record 370th Grand Slam match win.
Cerundolo and Djokovic have never met before but the Argentine stunned world number four Alexander Zverev on clay in Madrid earlier this season on his way to the quarter-finals.
The 25-year-old also made the last 16 in Paris in 2023 where he lost in five sets to Denmark’s Holger Rune.
Zverev, who knocked out 14-time champion Rafael Nadal in the first round, was pushed to the brink by Tallon Griekspoor in the third round where he battled back from 4-1 down in the final set.
The 27-year-old German is playing under the shadow of an ongoing trial in Berlin over allegations of assaulting an ex-girlfriend.
Zverev is in the fourth round at Roland Garros for the seventh consecutive year and is the only player to reach the semi-finals at the last three French Opens.
Rune, a two-time quarter-finalist in Paris, defeated Zverev in straight sets in their only previous meeting on clay in Munich in 2022.
Fifth-seeded Russian Daniil Medvedev takes on Australian 11th seed Alex de Minaur.
Former US Open champion Medvedev reached the quarter-finals in 2021, ending a run of four successive first round losses.
Casper Ruud, the runner-up to Nadal and then Djokovic in the last two years, tackles Taylor Fritz for a quarter-final spot.
