{"id":2955,"date":"2026-06-06T12:05:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=2955"},"modified":"2026-06-06T12:05:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:05:38","slug":"sinner-and-sabalenka-meltdowns-have-made-it-a-french-open-full-of-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=2955","title":{"rendered":"Sinner and Sabalenka meltdowns have made it a French Open full of surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus reacts after losing the quarterfinal tennis match against Russia\u2019s Diana Shnaider at the French Open in Paris, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo\/Emma Da Silva)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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

Read more A SEAL\u2019s death left doubts. His family thought Hegseth and Trump Jr. would help.<\/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

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 after match point and required medical attention on the court. He was eventually pushed away 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

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>

Read more The World Cup pitches are the result of years of engineering to find just the right grass<\/a><\/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

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 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 wants \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

Chwalinska was facing Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva for the title 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

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 due to 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>

Read more Newly blue Reflecting Pool is latest sign of Trump\u2019s rush to put stamp on D.C.<\/a><\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jannik Sinner and his 30-match winning streak melted away during the opening week\u2019s heat wave<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nSinner and Sabalenka meltdowns have made it a French Open full of surprises - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=2955\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sinner and Sabalenka meltdowns have made it a French Open full of surprises - Moving Insider USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jannik Sinner and his 30-match winning streak melted away during the opening week\u2019s heat wave\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=2955\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving Insider USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-06T12:05:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ab510ca4f510c5ff8bc8532fd7f780d7-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1706\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=2955#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=2955\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/22d40ab81790f6a361021763bb56ef03\"},\"headline\":\"Sinner and Sabalenka meltdowns have made it a French Open full of surprises\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-06T12:05:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=2955\"},\"wordCount\":900,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=2955#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/a87d9b1f42c795c20139cc19f20482f7-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=2955#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=2955\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=2955\",\"name\":\"Sinner and Sabalenka meltdowns have made it a French Open full of surprises - 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