Jannik Sinner was one game from the third round and a quiet stroll toward the title everyone had already handed him. He led Juan Manuel Cerundolo — the world No. 56, a man who had never won a third-round match at a major in his life — by two sets and 5-1. And then, in the Paris heat, his legs stopped working.
If you watched it live, you know the strange, sinking feeling of it. The best player in the world, winner of thirty straight matches coming into Paris, the man who had turned the entire clay spring into a formality, suddenly could not run. The cramp took his serve. He failed to serve out the match once, then again. He called for a medical timeout at 5-4, 0/40 in the third, and from that moment the most dominant player in tennis won just two of the last twenty games. Final score: 2-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1, Cerundolo. Three hours and thirty-six minutes. "I just kind of hit the wall," Sinner said afterward, and there was not much else to say.
It is one of the biggest upsets in the recorded history of tennis betting. And it was only the second-most stunning thing to happen in the men's draw this week.
The throne was already half-empty before Sinner fell
Here is the thing you have to hold in your head to understand how wide open this tournament suddenly is. Carlos Alcaraz never even made it to Paris — the two-time defending champion is at home in Murcia with a wrist injury, watching on television like the rest of us. So the man who had won the last two Roland Garros titles was already gone before a ball was struck.
That left Sinner. The world No. 1, the favourite, the one fixed point everyone built their bracket around. We even told you, in piece after piece this fortnight, that he would probably win it — because that is what the form said, and the form was overwhelming.
Now he is gone too. Both kings, the reigning one and the No. 1 who was supposed to inherit, out of the same tournament inside the same week — one to injury, one to a cramp at 5-1. You do not get fortnights like this very often. You barely get them once a decade.
And then the kid took out Djokovic
You remember the 19-year-old from Rio we wrote about, the one with the loudest crowd in tennis and Guga Kuerten's ghost on his back? Joao Fonseca walked onto Court Philippe-Chatrier on Friday, in front of 15,000 people, two sets down to Novak Djokovic, and refused to lose.
He came back from 0-2 to beat the 24-time Grand Slam champion 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-5 — four hours and fifty-three minutes of tennis, the Paris heat slowly draining the 39-year-old Serb while the teenager kept swinging like he had no idea he was supposed to be nervous. By the fourth set he had 46 winners. He hit three aces from break point down to close it out. He became the first teenager in thirty years of Grand Slam tennis to come back from two sets down twice in the same tournament.
If you had told a tennis fan a week ago that Sinner, Alcaraz and Djokovic would all be absent from the second week of Roland Garros — and that a Brazilian teenager would be the one to send the last of the three home — they would have laughed at you. It happened anyway.
For the first time since 1968, the round of 16 has no former champions
Let that sentence land, because it is the cleanest way to measure what just happened. When the men's last sixteen begins, there will not be a single former Grand Slam champion left in the men's singles draw. Not one. The last time that was true at any major was 1968 — the first year of the Open era, before most of the sport's living legends were born.
A first-time Grand Slam champion is now guaranteed. Whoever lifts the Coupe des Mousquetaires next Sunday will be doing it for the very first time. The trophy that has belonged, almost without interruption, to Nadal and Djokovic and Alcaraz and the handful of greats around them for two decades is about to be handed to someone who has never held a major at all.
That is not a disaster. That is the most romantic thing that can happen to a tennis tournament. The door is open. Anyone left in the building can walk through it.
So who actually takes it?
This is the fun part — the part where the bracket stops being a coronation and becomes a genuine, wide-open scramble. Look at who is left.
Casper Ruud is still standing, and if you read what we wrote about him before the tournament, you know why this matters. The Norwegian has lost two Roland Garros finals — to Nadal, to Djokovic — to the two greatest clay players who ever lived. We said 2026 was the cleanest shot of his career precisely because those giants would not be in his way this time. We did not imagine the path would clear quite this dramatically. He fought back from two sets down himself this week, saving two match points to beat Tommy Paul 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(4), 7-5. He has never wanted a fortnight like this more.
Alexander Zverev is the highest seed left, a two-time major finalist who has spent his whole career waiting for a draw to fall open in front of him. This is the one.
And then there are the dreamers. Fonseca, riding a wave of noise and self-belief, suddenly two wins from a final nobody booked him for. Jesper de Jong, the Dutch world No. 106 who came through qualifying as a lucky loser, beat the No. 13 seed Khachanov in five, and is now only the third lucky loser in the Open era to reach the men's fourth round here. Daniil Medvedev, the man who can win everywhere but Paris, is sadly not part of this story — the clay curse held, and he went out in the first round to a wildcard, exactly the trapdoor we worried about. But that is the point of a week like this: for every fairytale, a favourite falls through the floor.
Sunday: the match the draw gift-wrapped
Here is where it gets almost too good. On Sunday, Joao Fonseca plays Casper Ruud for a place in the quarter-finals — the teenage phenom we profiled against the three-time runner-up we profiled, both of them having clawed back from two sets down this week, both of them suddenly carrying the hopes of everyone who loves an underdog.
It is the kind of match that did not exist on paper a week ago, because a week ago the bracket was supposed to funnel everyone toward Sinner. Now Sinner is on a plane home and two of the most likeable players in the men's game are going to walk onto a Paris show court with the draw blown wide open behind them. One of them moves a step closer to a final no one predicted. Whatever happens, you are going to want to watch it.
What this says about the men's game
There is a colder reading of all this, and it is worth being honest about it. Some of these results are not pure romance — Sinner cramped in extreme heat, Djokovic is 39 and ran out of body in a five-set furnace. A first-time champion is guaranteed partly because the two best players of the moment were removed by absence and attrition rather than beaten at their peak.
But that is tennis. The heat is part of clay. The five-set survival test is the whole point of best-of-five. A champion who comes through this draw will have done it in brutal conditions, against opponents swinging freely because they have nothing to lose, on the sport's most physically punishing surface. There will be an asterisk-shaped temptation to discount it. Resist it. The names left in the draw earned their place in the same heat that took the favourites down.
What is confirmed, and what is just mood
Confirmed, because it happened in front of all of us: Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1, lost in the second round to Juan Manuel Cerundolo (world No. 56), 2-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1, after leading by two sets and 5-1, undone by cramp in the Paris heat. Carlos Alcaraz, two-time defending champion, withdrew before the tournament with a wrist injury. Joao Fonseca, 19, beat Novak Djokovic 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-5 from two sets down, the first teenager in 30 years to come back from two sets down twice in one Grand Slam. For the first time since 1968, no former Grand Slam champion remains in the men's round of 16, and a first-time major champion is guaranteed. Casper Ruud beat Tommy Paul from two sets down, saving two match points, and plays Fonseca on Sunday. Alexander Zverev, the highest remaining seed, plays lucky loser Jesper de Jong, who beat No. 13 seed Khachanov to become only the third lucky loser in the Open era to reach the men's fourth round at Roland Garros.
Just mood, for now: who actually lifts the trophy. The draw is open enough that almost any of the survivors has a real claim, and anyone who tells you they know is guessing. That is exactly what makes the second week appointment viewing.
The bottom line
Roland Garros 2026 was supposed to be a procession. Alcaraz was meant to defend; when his wrist gave out, Sinner was meant to inherit. Instead the tournament has done the rarest and most thrilling thing a Grand Slam can do — it has thrown both its kings out the door inside a single week and dared the rest of the field to be brave.
For the first time since the Open era began, the men's last sixteen contains nobody who has ever won a major. Someone is about to win the first big trophy of their life on the second Sunday in Paris, in front of a crowd that has spent a week unlearning everything it thought it knew about this draw. We do not know who. We have not been able to say that about a men's Slam in twenty years.
If you only tune in to tennis for the finals, make an exception this fortnight. The throne is empty. Somebody young, or somebody patient, or somebody who has waited their whole career for exactly this, is about to climb onto it — and the climb is going to be unforgettable.
Sources
- ATP Tour: Jannik Sinner falls to Juan Manuel Cerundolo at Roland Garros in five-set stunner
- ATP Tour: Jannik Sinner on Roland Garros defeat — "I just kind of hit the wall"
- CNN: Jannik Sinner crashes out of heat-stricken Roland Garros in five-set upset
- SI: Jannik Sinner's shock upset blows open Roland Garros draw
- Roland-Garros official: Fonseca thunders past Djokovic (R3)
- CBS Sports: Joao Fonseca stuns Novak Djokovic in five-set instant classic
- ATP Tour: Who are the players to watch at Roland Garros after Sinner's loss?
- Sky Sports: Who's going to win men's singles after Sinner and Djokovic shock defeats?
- ATP Tour: Roland Garros 2026 — top half of draw creaks open
- Last Word on Sports: French Open 2026 — the throne is up for grabs
- Roland-Garros official: RG Live, Saturday May 30
Photo: Jannik Sinner on the clay at Roland Garros 2025 / Hameltion / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
