Novak Djokovic survived a scare against Lorenzo Musetti to reach the last-16 of the French Open – but it took him until 3am on Sunday morning to wrap up the win.
Djokovic came through the five-set epic 7-5 6-7 (6-8) 2-6 6-3 6-0 at Roland Garros, with 3.07am the latest a match has ever finished at the Grand Slam. Organisers decided to add extra matches to the show courts with roofs after heavy rain brought a five-hour delay and the match didn’t start until 10.45pm on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
The world No1 was in trouble when he slipped 2-1 down against the Italian 30th seed but he fought back in trademark style to book a fourth-round match against Argentina's Francisco Cerundolo as he chases a 25th Major title. The difficulty of the win was shown by Djokovic taking long pauses between points to steady himself and regain his breath.
His delays earned him a warning from the umpire, who demanded he speed up between serves in the final set. "Have a little bit of understanding. It's 3am!" Djokovic replied.
Djokovic’s remarkable stamina eventually came through in a whitewash fifth set which saw him improve his record to 39-11 in five-set matches over his career. "It was a great battle. It was a shame for him to lose," he said. "He really wanted to win this match. It was very close. I had a bit of luck right at the beginning of the fourth set because he was the better player on the court at that time.
"And it was a point in time where I couldn't find any solutions and I had to try and solve the conundrum of his game. Basically, I didn't seem to be able to win against him. Everything that he was doing, he was succeeding in very high quality, less errors, so I was really in a tricky position. I wanted to thank you (the crowd).
"It was in the fourth set at 2-2, you gave me the energy and I became a new player. So thank you for your support at that moment in time. It's incredible that you hang around. What time is it? It's like three in the morning, isn't it? And loads of kids – you, my friend, you should be in bed. You're too young but in any case, thank you very much.
"Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was perhaps the best match that I played here. With all this excitement, with everything. And now it's impossible to go to bed, you know, with all this adrenaline that you've got. So if you're organising a party somewhere, I'll join you. Let's go!"
World No7 Casper Ruud was still up watching after his four-set win over Tomas Martin Etcheverry and tweeted: “Can tennis be considered one of the toughest sports in the world? What other sports make you play/compete/perform for 4+ hours at 3am?”