Gabriel Diallo surprises 2025 clay-court leader Cerundolo in first round of Roland Garros

A few Top 10 players fell at Roland Garros on Monday—Taylor Fritz, Emma Navarro—but given their results coming in, their defeats might not have been the biggest surprises of the day.

That honor might go to Gabriel Diallo’s first-round stunner over No. 18-ranked Francisco Cerundolo, who had more wins on clay this year—19—than any other player coming into Roland Garros.

That's male or female.

And he beat him in straight sets, too, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

The 23-year-old, 6’ 8” Canadian has made headlines over the last year with a handful of breakthrough runs, most notably reaching his first ATP final in Almaty, Kazakhstan last fall and, just a few weeks ago, making it all the way to his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal in Madrid—as a lucky loser, no less.

And in Paris on Monday he notched the third Top 20 win of his young career, having previously beaten a No. 18-ranked Lorenzo Musetti at the Davis Cup Finals in 2023 and a No. 16-ranked Grigor Dimitrov, his best career win by ranking, in Madrid this year.

MOST WINS ON CLAY THIS YEAR COMING INTO ROLAND GARROS (tour-level):

• 19: Francisco Cerundolo
• 15: Carlos Alcaraz
• 14: Lorenzo Musetti
• 14: Alexander Zverev
• 13: Sebastian Baez

(Elina Svitolina led the women coming in with 12 clay-court wins).

After getting the first break of the match to close out the 44-minute first set on Monday, Diallo was in some trouble early in the second set against Cerundolo, going down a break at 2-1—but he broke right back in the next game and snuck out one more break per set en route to the two-hour, 10-minute upset.

Though he lost it, Diallo faced just one break point in the match.

He’s now through to the second round of Roland Garros for the first time, having fallen in the first round in his main draw debut last year in a five-set marathon against Kei Nishikori.

Up next for the No. 54-ranked Canadian will be No. 35-ranked Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor, who battled back from a set down to beat American Marcos Giron, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5.

The two will be playing each other for the first time.