French Open 2025 live updates: Day 8 latest with Rune vs. Musetti night session after Tiafoe makes quarterfinals – The New York Times

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The fourth round of the 2025 French Open is in full swing with two American stars into the quarterfinals at Roland Garros in Paris.
Carlos Alcaraz (2) beat Ben Shelton in four sets, but Frances Tiafoe (15) has joined fellow American Tommy Paul (12) in the quarters.
Lorenzo Musetti (8) and Holger Rune (10) are on Philippe-Chatrier for the night session, and it's Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Zheng Qinwen (8) and Iga Świątek (5) vs. Elina Svitolina (13) in the women's singles last eight after their wins today.
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Tennis on clay courts: The unpredictable dance of sun, rain, wind and brick dust at Roland Garros
Musetti 5*-4 Rune
The adjective "cat-and-mouse" is usually reserved for rallies that take place at the net, but the baseline exchanges between Rune and Musetti have a similar quality. The first person to hit the ball down the line is the one who wants to get on top of the point, but it comes with the risk of making an error, eyes widening at all that uninhabited red clay in front.
With Rune down 30-40, Musetti resets a point with a whipped backhand lob, pushing Rune back. A high, heavy forehand and the Dane nets his backhand to give Musetti the chance to serve for the first set.
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Musetti *3-4 Rune
After getting that crucial hold, Rune immediately broke Musetti's serve to get to 2-2. Since then, both players have been showcasing their clay-court arsenal (and the things they want to avoid).
Musetti isn't exactly bailing out of backhand-to-backhand rallies, but he's moving to his left to hit a forehand from that corner at every opportunity.
Rune is trying to open the court with that pattern, picking the moment to run around his backhand and switch things up with a forehand down the line. He misses one, though, to go down 30-40, but saves the break point by running around another forehand and lacing it in the same spot.
He serves and volleys to get game point, then cracks a forehand to move ahead 4-3.
Musetti *2-1 Rune
After a janky run of points, Rune steadies himself for another overhead up Ad-40. This time he stays calm and just places it straight into the open court, well away from Musetti and from the lines.
Musetti 2-0* Rune
A tough start for the Dane, broken in his opening service game and struggling to stay with Musetti in the longer exchanges early on. But Rune feathers a drop shot to move to 30-15, before an ace curving down the T takes him to 40-15 as he goes in search of a first game.
After a routine forehand miss at 40-30, he pushes a serve wide into Musetti's one-handed backhand, and meets the ball at the net… But sends a swing volley way, way wide. “That's so stupid,” he says to himself. He follows it up with a missed overhead from the middle of the court, and Musetti has break point. He spies an opening to flash a backhand down the line, but it cannons off the net post to go back to 40-40.
“It was a great match, first two sets I played great. Third set he started getting a lot of balls in high, felt like boys' under-12s out here. Happy to get through, very tough, won every match in straights and only played one set that wasn't clean. Pretty impressive for me.
“I don't like running so much so I'd rather play quick … But if I have to grind and run I'll do what I gotta do.
“It's great when I'm giving an unbelievable effort and playing great tennis that people appreciate it … Let people know they can have fun even though we're playing at the highest level,” Tiafoe said.
Tiafoe 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(4) Altmaier
Altmaier again has Tiafoe on the back foot at the net, but chooses to leave a looping forehand pass from the American alone. The ball drops in for 3-1 Tiafoe. Altmaier grabs the next point for 3-2 with a simple serve-plus-one combination, but Tiafoe has the mini-break.
A whipped crosscourt forehand off another short return from Altmaier takes Tiafoe to 4-2 at the change of ends.
But oh no! Tiafoe has all the court to aim for on a swing volley, but abbreviates his follow-through and bunts it long to hand the German a lifeline at 4-3 Tiafoe. Altmaier grabs it with aplomb, spinning a lob over Tiafoe's head to get it back to 4-4 to cheers from the Suzanne-Lenglen crowd, who don't want their tennis day to end.
Altmaier then sends what would have been a clean winner millimeters long to give Tiafoe two points on serve to win the match. At 5-4, the German goes just wide with a crosscourt forehand, before he launches a backhand return long and Tiafoe lets out a roar of delight.
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Tiafoe 6-3, 6-4, 6-6 Altmaier
The American cruises through his service game like it's nothing and it's a tiebreak to determine whether or not Altmaier's run at Roland Garros will continue.
A skidding drop shot from the German takes him to 1-0, before Altmaier has an opening off a poor Tiafoe drop shot. But he hits the forehand straight to his opponent instead of the open court, and Tiafoe forces the error for 1-1. Another ropey shot from Tiafoe at the net and Altmaier has another opportunity, but spoons the ball wide. 1-2.
Daniel Altmaier plays the kind of service game that a man who has gotten up 5-2 before being pulled back to 5-5 is likely to play.
He does some of the things that got him to 5-2, like hitting a thunderous ace, but then does some of the things that got him to 5-5, like a checked-out behind-the-back flick. At 40-40, a forehand down the line and an ace down the T take him to 6-5, and Tiafoe will serve to stay in the set again.
A lot of tension on Court Suzanne-Lenglen as Altmaier shunts a tight one-handed backhand into the net, before doing the same off a return off serve to put Tiafoe 30-0 up.
The American is quickly to 40-0, and another tired looking backhand from the German finds the net. Tiafoe is back at 5-5, arresting a surge from Altmaier, who looked ready to send this match into a fourth set.
A big test of the German's mettle now.
Tiafoe 6-3. 6-4, *4-5 Altmaier
Having looked like he was cruising against the German clay-court specialist, Frances Tiafoe is serving to stay in the third set on Court Suzanne-Lenglen.
Altmaier has an unusually good record against high-ranked players at Roland Garros, with a 3-7 record against top-20 players at Grand Slams but a 3-0 record in the French capital. It would be a tall order for him to continue that record from two sets down, but he's giving Tiafoe some issues in the third.
Up 5-3, Altmaier pins Tiafoe in the ad court corner with a series of slices, before a topspin backhand (a mishit, really) jumps off the line and forces Tiafoe to swing a backhand long.
A serve-plus-one brings him to 30-15, but Tiafoe digs out a skidding slice that Altmaier can only scoop wide.
Come 30-30, Tiafoe pinches a break point with a flashing return winner before a lucky net cord off a backhand down the line secures the break.
Lorenzo Musetti (8) vs. Holger Rune (10)
A match for the clay-court purists will close out the action on the main stadium for day eight at Roland Garros. Lorenzo Musetti and Holger Rune have very different gamestyles, but both players thrive on the red dirt for very different reasons.
Musetti is all soft hands and touch, with a revving topspin forehand and a one-handed backhand that could hang in any one of Paris' art museums. He's also one of the great artists on both natural surfaces (clay and grass). His wind-up on his groundstrokes in rallies can be long, which means he sometimes gets rushed, but the clay takes some of that away. More intentionally, his return game is a buffet of chips and blocks, with the Italian abbreviating that wind-up and forcing servers to move forward with the ball skidding low to the court.
Rune is more of a baseliner, a curious fish who thrives in completely opposing conditions: the slow, high bounce of clay and the wind-less skid of indoor hard courts. Like Musetti, the clay courts give him time to produce his groundstrokes, but this skews heavily to his forehand, which is a bit of a stop-start shot compared to his backhand, which is one of the purest in the men's game.
The head to head is 2-0 in Rune's favor, but they are yet to meet on clay.
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“First of all, I think we both have huge respect for each other, every time we face each other we bring up the level to a top,” Alcaraz says on court.
“I think we played a really great tennis, a really complete one. Big shots, forehands, serves. We stayed there the whole match. For me it's great having Ben around, it's great for tennis and for the people. I love watching him play.
“Today I fought against myself, the mind … Today in some moments I was mad, I was angry with myself, talking not really good things. Just really happy that I didn't let those thoughts play against me. I just tried to calm myself in those moments I was down and I managed to get going.”
Alcaraz 7-6(8), 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 Shelton
Shelton may have mixed the solid and the spectacular, but no one in men's tennis does it like Alcaraz — even if he throws in some lapses of concentration too.
He moves up 30-0, but a weak second shot and a double fault open the door for Shelton to put him under some pressure. Alcaraz responds by scrambling to a net cord and feathering a drop shot into Shelton's backhand side, which the American can't dig up. Alcaraz then smashes an inside-in forehand past the American on match point to set up a quarterfinal against Tommy Paul.
Shelton deserves a lot of credit for hanging with Alcaraz, proving again that he has upped his rally tolerance and tried to rely less on the highlight reel points for which both of these players are known. He's just a little far away from Alcaraz in almost every department still.
Alcaraz 7-6(8), 6-3, 4-6, *5-4 Shelton
Shelton has mixed the solid and the spectacular against the defending champion, playing some highlight reel winners but also digging in and embracing the need to make his weaknesses work for him to have any chance of winning this match.
He'll have to do so again as Alcaraz serves for a place in the quarterfinals.
The two American men on court are in very different places in their respective matches. No. 15 seed Frances Tiafoe is two sets up on Daniel Altmaier, who knocked out Taylor Fritz, the top American man, in the first round.
Altmaier has just returned to the court after going off to collect his thoughts. If Tiafoe were to win in three, he would make it 12 sets in a row on the Roland Garros clay — a perfect record that few would have predicted at the start of the event.
Ben Shelton is trying to claw back the fourth set against Carlos Alcaraz, down 5-3 and serving to stay in the match.
…plenty of intriguing match-ups.
Top seeds Mate Pavic/Lyudmyla Kichenok are up against UK/U.S. pair Neal Skupski/Desirae Krawczyk, while Marcelo Arévalo/Zhang Shuai (2) face Giuliana Olmos and Lloyd Glasspool.
Americans Evan King/Taylor Townsend (4) are challenging last year's winners Édouard Roger-Vasselin and Laura Siegemund, with Brits Olivia Nicholls and Henry Patten playing Sara Errani/Andrea Vavassori (3).
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Tiafoe 6-3, *4-3 Altmaier
With Shelton's match in the balance, his U.S. compatriot Frances Tiafoe (15) is finding things easier against the unseeded Daniel Altmaier.
He took the first set 6-3 thanks to two early breaks and has just broken the German to go 4-3 up in the second too.
Big Foe serving to make it 5-3.
Americans Taylor Townsend/Evan King (4) beat French pair Estelle Cascino/Geoffrey Blancaneaux 6-3, 7-5.
But U.S. duo Christian Harrison/Nicole Melichar-Martinez were eliminated by champions Édouard Roger-Vasselin/Laura Siegemund 3-6, 6-4, 10-8.
Third seeds Sara Errani/Andrea Vavassori of Italy got past Robert Galloway/Jiang Xinyu 6-3, 7-5 too.
Shelton's to-do list this year included: ‘Be more than a below average returner’.
He got that set with the sort of return he has been trying to do more.
Blocking the ball deep and getting into the point and forcing the opponent to hit a decent plus-one shot.
Alcaraz muffed it. Set Shelton. On they go.

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