Jannik Sinner Suffers Shocking Second Round French Open Defeat

Italian Jannik Sinner, tennis world No. 1, suffered a shocking second-round defeat in the French Open on May 28 against world No. 56, Juan Manuel Cerundolo of Argentina. 

The 6-3, 6-2, 5-7, 1-6, 1-6 loss came after a heatwave came over Court Philippe-Chatrier in Paris, and Sinner appeared to be struggling physically, though he didn’t blame the heat after the match.

“[I] woke up this morning [and] didn’t feel very well. … [I] tried to keep the points very short. In the beginning I was hitting very clean, very good, and then I kind of hit the wall … middle third set,” he said at the press conference. “[I] started to feel dizzy, very low [on] energy… it was warm but not crazy warm. Nothing against the heat, nothing against the weather. It was just me today.”

The 24-year-old Italian won the first two sets, taking a 5-1 lead in the third set before losing 18 of the next 20 games. 

The loss ends a 30-match win streak and is Sinner’s first defeat on clay this season. 

He’s won a record six ATP Masters 1000 tournaments in a row extending back to the end of last year. The most recent of these wins, the Italian Open in May, made Sinner the second man in history to win all nine Masters 1000 titles alongside Novak Djokovic. 

Carlos Alcaraz, world No. 2 and two-time defending French Open champion, pulled out of this year’s tournament because of a lingering wrist injury and immediately made Sinner a heavy favorite to win the tournament, which would have been Sinner’s fifth grand slam and first French Open title.

“Today honestly break my heart little bit—I watch from home and seeing you suffer with the heat like this was very painful for me,” Alcaraz said to Sinner on Instagram following the match. “I know this feeling very good. Your heart still want war but the legs say ciao …you still one of the best things happening to tennis now.”

The title would have also made Sinner the 10th player in men’s tennis to complete the career grand slam—when a player wins all four grand slam titles in a career. Alcaraz accomplished the feat this year when he beat Novak Djokovic in four sets in the Australian Open Final. 

Alcaraz and Sinner had faced off in a five-set French Open final last year, where Alcaraz saved three match points to come out on top in a French Open-record five-hour, 29-minute contest. The two have won the previous nine grand slams and faced off in three consecutive grand slam finals before Djokovic beat Sinner in this year’s Australian Open semifinal. 

The loss to Cerundolo today opens the door for world No. 3 Alexander Zverev and No. 4 Djokovic.

For 39-year-old Djokovic, who already holds the men’s career slam record with 24, a tournament win would be his fourth French Open title and make the Serbian the oldest tennis player to ever win a grand slam by nearly two years.

Following the defeat, Sinner said he needs time to recover, physically and mentally, to be ready for Wimbledon, and likely won’t play any grass tournaments before.