Matteo Arnaldi withdrew just before his Roland Garros semi-final against Flavio Cobolli on Friday due to a viral illness. Cobolli will play Alexander Zverev for the title on Sunday.
The No. 34 player in the PIF ATP Live Rankings revealed that he vomited overnight from Thursday to Friday and was unable to take Court Philippe-Chatrier and compete. He conducted his press conference alongside Cobolli.
"It's difficult to be here. It's not what I wanted to do, but last night I started to feel not very well," Arnaldi said. "Yesterday I was feeling okay. I came here to practise. I did everything I had to do, and I was feeling fine.
"Then I had dinner. I started to feel so-so with my stomach. I was, like, 'Alright, just didn't digest very well'. But then I woke up at 1 a.m., and I started vomiting, and I wasn't feeling the best."
Arnaldi explained that he attempted to sleep at that point, but "couldn't sleep at all". At 6 or 7 a.m., he vomited again.
"This time was pretty bad. We called the doctor in the room. He came, gave me some stuff," Arnaldi said. "I was hoping that it would just be something from dinner or something like that, but then throughout the day, I couldn't eat. Every time we did something or would drink, I would go back to the bathroom."
Arnaldi played 18 sets through four matches to reach his first major quarter-final, in which the Italian advanced before the end of the second set when Matteo Berrettini retired due to a hip injury.
The 25-year-old spent 17 hours and 42 minutes on court through four matches, one hour and 58 minutes longer than any other player has taken to make the quarter-finals at any Grand Slam tournament since the ATP Tour began recording match times in 1991.
The last time a player withdrew at this stage of a major was at Wimbledon in 2022, when Rafael Nadal withdrew before facing Nick Kyrgios in the semi-finals.
Zverev leads Cobolli 3-1 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series. They played in the third round at Roland Garros last year, when Zverev triumphed 6-2, 7-6(4), 6-1.
Second-seeded Zverev will be competing in his fourth major final, while Cobolli will play for a Grand Slam trophy for the first time. The Italian's previous best run at a major came at Wimbledon last year, when he made the quarter-finals.
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