{"id":627320,"date":"2026-06-08T10:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/627320\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T10:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:05:09","slug":"french-open-2026-how-seismic-shocks-compelling-drama-and-fairytale-stories-ensured-roland-garros-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/627320\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open 2026: How seismic shocks, compelling drama and fairytale stories ensured Roland Garros classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jannik Sinner’s early exit may have been bad news for him, but it proved to be extremely good for the men’s singles competition.<\/p>\n

Generational rivals Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz had won the previous nine Grand Slams between them. With Alcaraz missing with a wrist injury, top seed Sinner was the heaviest favourite since 14-time champion Rafael Nadal to lift the title. <\/p>\n

Ironically, Sinner found himself on the receiving end of the biggest Paris shock since Nadal lost to Robin Soderling in 2009. <\/p>\n

The Italian struggled physically in the second round and Argentina’s Juan Manuel Cerundolo took advantage to blow the draw wide open.<\/p>\n

When 39-year-old Novak Djokovic was beaten in the third round, a new Grand Slam champion was guaranteed.<\/p>\n

A host of seeded players falling early and plenty of five-set matches were signs of the tension players felt as they realised a golden opportunity had presented itself.<\/p>\n

Eventually Germany’s Alexander Zverev – after another fittingly stressful final<\/a> – came through to secure his place among the game’s greats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jannik Sinner’s early exit may have been bad news for him, but it proved to be extremely good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-627320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}