Jesper de Jong Tops Khachanov in Five Sets, Dejong Tennis

Jesper de Jong pulled off a five-set win over 15th-ranked Karen Khachanov at the French Open, and dejong tennis now has a breakthrough result to point to. The 106th-ranked Dutchman advanced 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, 6-7, 6-2 and reached the fourth round for the first time at this tournament.

Roland Garros pressure

The scoreline turned on de Jong’s cleaner stretches on serve and his ability to keep Khachanov from settling in. He won 95% of his first-service points in the opening set, going 19 for 20, and finished that set with just five unforced errors while saving two break points.

He carried that level into the third set, where he went 13 for 13 on first serve and allowed only three return points. Khachanov forced a fifth set by taking the fourth in a tiebreak, but de Jong answered by breaking twice in the decider and moving ahead 4-0.

Khachanov’s early run

The loss ended a run in which Khachanov had dropped only one set before meeting de Jong. He had already beaten wildcard Arthur Gea and 36-year-old Marco Trungelliti in straightening-out fashion, so the match offered a different kind of test once de Jong kept changing the pace and landing the first strike.

De Jong’s route to this result also included a first-round win over Stan Wawrinka and a quick victory over Federico Cina in under two hours. That made the Khachanov match the clear leap in difficulty, and he answered it with the first top-15 ATP Tour win of his career.

Zverev waits next

The reward is a fourth-round place at the French Open and a quarterfinal clash with Alexander Zverev. For a 106th-ranked player, the shift from beating Wawrinka and Cina to taking out a seeded opponent at a clay Grand Slam gives him a much harder next assignment, but also a cleaner position in the draw than he had at the start of the week.