DANISH young gun Holger Rune is through to the quarter finals of Roland Garros after fending off a stern battle from Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo. The match lasted three hours and 59 minutes, and took until a 10-7 victory in the fifth set super tiebreak for Rune to be announced the winner and through to the last eight at Roland Garros.

In an epic contest, Rune won 7-6 3-6 6-4 1-6 7-6 against the Argentinian who kept coming back each time it looked like the sixth seeded Dane would gain some separation. The result marked hte first time Rune had won a five-setter and having to overcome some discomfort through the match, booked his place in the Roland Garros quarter finals against Casper Ruud for the second successive year.

In a similar match back at the Australian Open, Rune had two match points against Russian Andrey Rublev, but was unable to close it out, handing him valuable experience for his clash with Cerundolo.

“I had a heartbreaking loss in Australia, where I had this situation,” Rune said post-match. “I served for the match and lost and ended up in a Match Tie-break like this, so actually I told myself when we started the Match Tie-break [today] just to relax and play tennis and enjoy [it].

“Moments like this stay with you forever, no matter if you win or lose, you just go and enjoy and try to play your best, so I enjoyed every moment.”

Looking ahead to the next match against fellow clay courter Ruud, Rune is prepared for the challenge that the Roland Garros runner-up presents.

”He’s playing amazing, especially on clay,” Rune said. “I think it’s a surface that suits his game very well. He has a big forehand, a big swing. So when he gets the time, as we saw when I was [serving] for the match, he hit two forehand winners and he was just too good. So credit to him, he’s a very nice guy and I wish him all the best.”

AROUND THE COURTS

Ruud had a straight sets win over Chilean Nicolas Jarry in three hours and 20 minutes to reach the quarter finals, getting up 7-6 7-5 7-5. In the other matches, Argentinian Tomas Etcheverry had to battle through a first set tiebreak before only dropping one more game for the rest of the match en route to a 7-6 6-0 6-1 win over 27th seed Yoshihito Nishioka. Meanwhile German 22nd seed Alexander Zverev was too strong for Bulgarian 28th seed Grigor Dimitrov, securing a 6-1 6-4 6-3 victory.

In the women’s singles, Coco Gauff and Ons Jabeur both made their way through to the final eight. The young American defeated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 7-5 6-2, while the Tunisian star knocked off Bernarda Pera, 6-3 6-1. In the other matches, 14th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia won a record-breaking three-hour and 51-minute match against Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-7 6-3 7-5, while top seed Iga Swiatek had a walkover against Lesia Tsurenko after the Ukrainian pulled out injured 5-1 down in the first set.