There stood Daniel Altmaier, in front of the microphone, he actually just wanted to give Marion Bartoli, the former Wimbledon winner, a sign that things could start. But then the feelings got the better of him. He swallowed, tears welled up, eyes turned red. He had to turn around briefly and interrupt the field interview. “Daniel! Daniel! Daniel!” chants rang out from the stands on the Suzanne-Lenglen court, the second largest arena at the French Open.
Bartoli started the conversation. Of course she wanted to know how it was possible to win such a game. The German had dueled 5:26 hours with Jannik Sinner from South Tyrol before Altmaier scored his fifth match point with an ace to 6: 7 (0), 7: 6 (7), 1: 6, 7: 6 (4), 7 :5 transformed. “I just love the game of tennis,” Altmaier said when he had collected himself. And again the people howled. Yes, a German was celebrated in Paris as if he were one of them.
The German fends off two match points against himself
Altmaier is still 79th in the world rankings, he is one of those professionals who time and again see more in themselves than being stuck in this region of the rankings. This season, at 24, he has hinted that a significant boost in performance could come at some point. In the match against Sinner, the ninth in the world rankings and favourite, he lived out all his skills. Although he was very close, just one point, away from defeat. Sinner had two match points in the fourth set, at 5-4. In the first, Altmaier helped a net roller with the passing ball.
The end was dramatic: Altmaier served to win in the fifth set at 5:4, conceded the re-break, then took the service game from Sinner again and initially lost three of his own match balls at 40:0. Five times it was a debut, and he only used his fifth match point. He dropped into a crouch and threw up his arms.
Altmaier: “A match to remember”
He explained how he managed to keep going in this game, which was the longest of this French Open so far: “Just play every point with the greatest possible effort, that keeps you in the present.” He would have stuck to this attitude stubbornly. Altmaier recalled that there were “so many historic matches” with “match balls here and there”. He can be confident, he’s said clearly several times that he dreams of a Grand Slam win, but now? He said modestly: “I don’t know if it was a historic match, but it was certainly one to remember.”
Altmaier was already good in Paris, where he even did best of all four Grand Slams. In 2020 he was in the round of 16 at the Bois de Boulogne, as a qualifier he had defeated a top ten player for the first time on the way to the round of 16 Jan-Lennard Struff and in the Italian Matteo Berrettini. He then lost to Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta. “I love sand,” he said to Bartoli, and then he thanked the spectators again, “the emotions were crazy”. Applause. cheers. Daniel calls. In the third round Altmaier now meets the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. He can go further.