Gilles Simon, who’s playing the last tournament of his career in Paris this week, was just three points from losing to Andy Murray in the first round of the Masters 1000 event on Monday night, with the Brit serving at 6-4, 5-3, 15-0—but in a huge turnaround the Frenchman managed to come back and win in front of his home fans, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Home fans that included a slew of French tennis legends like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet and former women’s No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo.
It was a very meaningful win in a few ways, most obviously because it keeps Simon’s career alive—he’ll take on American Taylor Fritz in the second round on Wednesday.
It was also just the Frenchman’s third win in 19 career meetings against Murray—the Brit has completely dominated their head-to-head, which began more than 15 years ago with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 win for Simon in Rome in May of 2007.
Additionally, it was the 300th hard-court win of his career, making him the 24th man to reach that milestone in the Open Era, and just the ninth active men’s player.
MOST HARD-COURT WINS IN OPEN ERA (men, tour-level, active in bold):
783: Roger Federer
646: Novak Djokovic
592: Andre Agassi
514: Rafael Nadal
490: Jimmy Connors
483: Andy Murray
429: Pete Sampras
426: Andy Roddick
415: Michael Chang
401: Tomas Berdych
399: Ivan Lendl
382: Stefan Edberg
372: Lleyton Hewitt
358: Marin Cilic
346: Gael Monfils
346: David Ferrer
345: Richard Gasquet
345: John Isner
343: Tommy Haas
322: Brad Gilbert
317: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
315: Stan Wawrinka
311: Juan Martin del Potro
300: Gilles Simon