Rublev 'completely loses it' in Paris meltdown

Russian star Andrey Rublev came to Paris as a contender after winning the Madrid Open last month but he left Roland-Garros an emotional mess in a surprise loss to Italian Matteo Arnaldi in the round of 32 on Saturday morning AEST.

Rublev, the biggest men's casualty so far on another rain-drenched day at Roland Garros, lost control in the shock straight sets loss, throwing tantrums every set he was out there while smashing his knee with his own racquet on top of berating his coaching box and leaving a dent in the courtside bench after booting it.

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After losing the chance at nabbing set point in the opening frame, Rublev's day got worse when was embroiled in an argument with umpire Lazemar Engzell over a disputed line call.

Things spiralled even more in the second, when he dropped serve and furiously smashed his racquet into the clay, ranted towards his team and, at the subsequent changeover, damaged the courtside bench.

It reached a climax in the third, when he turned the abuse onto himself and smashed his own knee with his racquet and slapped himself in the face.

Rublev, who is 0-10 in Grand Slam quarter-finals, rattled off 37 unforced errors and four double faults on his way to a premature end to his campaign.

“I am completely disappointed with myself, with the way I behaved, the way I performed, and I can’t remember ever behaving worse in a Grand Slam tournament," he said. “It was the first time I ever behaved that badly."

Arnaldi disagreed.

"He does those things almost every match. Personally, I don’t pay too much attention,” Arnaldi said. “But it definitely does give me a little confidence, because it means I am giving him trouble, and what I was doing was working.”

Rublev said his own errors gave his opponent "wings to fly".

"It's not about concentration, it's because the way I behave I put myself completely down, and I give Matteo wings to fly, and he was flying in the third set. It was too late to do something."

As fror Arnaldi, the victory was the biggest of his career, and he will play either Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas or China's Zhang Zhizhen in the last 16.

"It's incredible, I mean I think I played the best tennis for sure in my life I would say," he said.