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Matteo Arnaldi was forced to withdraw from his Roland Garros semi-final against Flavio Cobolli on Friday night after being struck down by a viral illness.
As a result, Cobolli advanced to the final, where he will face Alexander Zverev on Sunday. The World No. 34 revealed that he began feeling unwell on Thursday night and suffered repeated bouts of vomiting, leaving him unable to take to Court Philippe-Chatrier for the highly anticipated clash. Arnaldi announced his withdrawal during a joint press conference with fellow Italian Cobolli, bringing his impressive Paris campaign to a premature end. Arnaldi endured a demanding route to the semi-finals, spending 18 sets across four matches to reach the first Grand Slam semi-final of his career. The Italian secured his place in the last four after Matteo Berrettini retired with a hip injury during the second set of their quarter-final encounter. The 25-year-old logged a remarkable 17 hours and 42 minutes on court en route to the semi-finals, the most time spent by any player reaching the last four of a Grand Slam since the ATP Tour began tracking match durations in 1991, surpassing the previous record by one hour and 58 minutes. Arnaldi's withdrawal also marked a rare occurrence at a major tournament. The last player to pull out at the semi-final stage of a Grand Slam was Rafael Nadal, who withdrew before his Wimbledon 2022 semi-final against Nick Kyrgios due to injury. "It's difficult to be here. It's not what I wanted to do, but last night I started to feel not very well. 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 said as per the ATP Tour website. "This time was pretty bad. We called the doctor in the room. He came and gave me some stuff. 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 added. (ANI)
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