{"id":690294,"date":"2026-06-07T19:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/690294\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T19:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:22:12","slug":"jannik-sinner-and-aryna-sabalenka-meltdowns-made-it-a-french-open-full-of-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/690294\/","title":{"rendered":"Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka meltdowns made it a French Open full of surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS (AP) \u2014 Jannik Sinner<\/a> and his 30-match winning streak melted away during the opening week\u2019s heat wave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fellow No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> had just as astonishing a mental meltdown during a quarterfinal defeat in which she described finding herself in a \u201cvery deep, deep, dark hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

No former major champions reached the men\u2019s and women\u2019s semifinals for the first time at a Grand Slam in 49 years.<\/p>\n

The French Open<\/a> that concludes this weekend has been unlike any other major tournament in recent memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always exciting when crazy things happen,\u201d said Madison Keys, the 2025 Australian Open champion who reached the fourth round. \u201cAs a tennis fan, it\u2019s been fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at some of the more surprising developments that have characterized Roland Garros this year:<\/p>\n

Heat wave<\/p>\n

With the temperature rising to at least 32 degrees Celsius (90 Fahrenheit) every day of the first week, players struggled to keep cool.<\/p>\n

After Jakub Mensik<\/a> edged Mariano Navone in a fifth-set tiebreaker in the second round, he cramped up and fell to the clay following match point and required medical attention on the court. He was eventually removed in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n

Mensik bounced back to reach the semifinals, where he lost to Alexander Zverev<\/a>, who will meet Flavio Cobolli<\/a> in Sunday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n

Two-time runner-up Casper Ruud was on the verge of passing out during a five-set win over Roman Safiullin in the first round, saying he felt \u201clike a zombie almost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruud conceded the fourth set 6-0 \u201cto get my pulse and body temperature down\u201d to see if he could recover in the fifth: \u201cLuckily that ended up working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Groundskeepers at Roland Garros<\/a> had to literally drench the clay courts with water at night to keep them from drying out during the day.<\/p>\n

Still, the heat made for entirely different conditions from normal: The pace of play was faster and balls were bouncing higher.<\/p>\n

Sinner \u2018hit the wall\u2019<\/p>\n

Already without two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, who missed the tournament with an injured right wrist, it was a shock when Sinner wasted a two-set and 5-1 lead in the third against 56th-ranked Juan Manuel Cerundolo in the second round.<\/p>\n

The top-ranked Sinner came to Paris on a 29-match winning streak and was an overwhelming favorite for the title. But the Italian said he started feeling dizzy and \u201cvery low on energy\u201d<\/a> when he needed to win just one more game against Cerundolo.<\/p>\n

Sinner won just two of the next 18 games as he struggled to cool himself with bags of ice and a hand-held fan on changeovers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kind of hit the wall,\u201d Sinner said.<\/p>\n

Djokovic wasted a two-set lead, too<\/p>\n

A day later it was a match for the ages when 39-year-old Novak Djokovic also surrendered a two-set advantage<\/a> and lost to 19-year-old Jo\u00e3o Fonseca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Djokovic, the 24-time Grand Slam champion, also had physical issues on another hot day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was barely standing on my legs toward the end of the match,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fonseca beat Ruud in the next round before his breakthrough performance ended with a loss to Mensik in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka wanted to quit tennis after loss<\/p>\n

Sabalenka was leading 4-1 in the second set of her quarterfinal with Diana Shnaider and was within two points of victory when she proceeded to lose 12 of 13 games.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka said later that she wanted \u201cto quit tennis right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know those rooms where you just go in and you smash everything,\u201d she added. \u201cProbably I will spend a whole day tomorrow over there destroying stuff. Maybe it will help. Maybe not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shnaider then went on to lose in the semifinals to Maja Chwalinska, who became the first qualifier in French Open history to reach the championship match<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mirra Andreeva beat Chwalinska for the title<\/a> Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know when was the last time that happened to me that I lost 10 games in a row,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cMentally I got into a very deep, deep, dark hole. \u2026 I just couldn\u2019t get back mentally on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new champion<\/p>\n

The 14th-ranked Flavio Cobolli reached his first Grand Slam final with the help of a retirement and withdrawal by two fellow Italians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Matteo Berrettini retired because of a left hip injury with Cobolli leading 7-5, 5-2 in their quarterfinal and then Matteo Arnaldi withdrew before their semifinal because of a virus.<\/p>\n

Zverev will be playing in his fourth major final on Sunday as he seeks an elusive Grand Slam title to conclude this wacky tournament.<\/p>\n

Whoever raises the Coupe des Mousquetaires trophy will become the first man other than Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic or Rafael Nadal to win a Grand Slam since Daniil Medvedev<\/a> at the 2021 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had so many long eras of these four people are the only people that we think are going to win,\u201d Keys said. \u201cMakes the sport interesting, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS (AP) \u2014 Jannik Sinner and his 30-match winning streak melted away during the opening week\u2019s heat wave.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[12082,652,2073,34749,26603,66321,22623,4039,4038,53697,432,214577,12764,211151,11251,70794,100517,9747,433,813,299656,99,428],"class_list":["post-690294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-casper-ruud","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-diana-shnaider","tag-flavio-cobolli","tag-french-open","tag-french-open-tennis-championships","tag-jakub-mensik","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-juan-manuel-cerundolo","tag-madison-keys","tag-maja-chwalinska","tag-mariano-navone","tag-matteo-arnaldi","tag-matteo-berrettini","tag-mirra-andreeva","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-rafael-nadal","tag-roman-safiullin","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}