Palli defeats Opelka first Grand Slam

Federico Cina opened his Roland Garros debut on May 24 by beating Reilly Opelka in five sets, giving the Italian qualifier his first Grand Slam match win. The official Roland Garros result showed Cina defeating the American 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-4 on Court 6 in 3 hours and 21 minutes. (rolandgarros.com) The victory came on the opening day of the men’s singles main draw in Paris. Cina, who is 19, arrived in the tournament as a qualifier. The result stood out because Opelka is an established ATP Tour player with a career-high ranking of No. 17, according to the ITF and ATP Tour player profiles. (rolandgarros.com) Cina, by contrast, is still early in his professional career and reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 183 on March 2, 2026, according to ATP and ITF records. The match gave him a first win at Grand Slam main-draw level. ### How did the match turn after Opelka took the first set? Roland Garros' official match page showed Opelka taking the opener 6-3 before Cina won the next two sets 6-4 and 6-2. (rolandgarros.com) Cina then lost the fourth set in a tiebreak before closing out the fifth 6-4. The sequence mattered because it forced the Italian to reset after missing a straight path to the finish and then hold up in a deciding set against one of the tour’s biggest servers. The official scoreline also showed how narrow the finish was. Cina lost the fourth-set tiebreak 8-6 before taking the fifth, which left the match balanced deep into the third hour. (itftennis.com) Roland Garros listed the contest as completed in 3 hours 21 minutes. ### Who is Federico Cina, and why was this a notable first-round result? Federico Cina is an Italian player born on March 30, 2007, according to ATP and other player records. ATP and ITF profiles list him as a right-hander, while the ITF said he won his first ATP Challenger title in Pune in March 2026 and rose to a career-high ranking of No. 183 after that run. (rolandgarros.com) That background helps explain why his name has been moving through junior, ITF and Challenger levels before this week’s main-draw appearance in Paris. The ITF said in a March 2 article that Cina had already come through qualifying at the Australian Open earlier this year and had added lower-level professional titles before his Challenger breakthrough. (rolandgarros.com) Roland Garros marked another step up because it placed him in the main draw of the year’s second Grand Slam. ### What does the official draw show next for him in Paris? Roland Garros' draw page listed Cina in the men’s singles bracket and showed him advancing from the first round after the win over Opelka. (atptour.com) The tournament’s official schedule page says the 2026 main draw runs from May 24 to June 7 at Stade Roland Garros in Paris. The next update for Cina will come from the tournament draw and order-of-play listings on the Roland Garros site, which track second-round opponents and court assignments as the event progresses. (rolandgarros.com) (itftennis.com)