Jannik Sinner’s French Open ended on Thursday with a second-round loss that he once had within reach of closing out. The world No. 1 led Juan Manuel Cerúndolo 6-3, 6-2, 5-2 and was four points from the third round before the match turned, leaving the French Open bracket without the man many expected to carry it deep into the second week.
The defeat mattered because Sinner had arrived in Paris on a 30-match winning streak and was chasing his first French Open title and a career Grand Slam. Cerúndolo, ranked world No. 56, did not need a perfect day to produce the upset. He needed only to survive long enough for Sinner’s body to start failing him, and that is what happened as the temperature climbed to around 90 degrees at Roland Garros.
Sinner said in a news conference that he woke up not feeling very well, then began to cramp and feel dizzy as the match wore on. He also said the weather was “warm, but not crazy warm,” even as the conditions caught up with him. The contrast explained the most telling part of the loss: this was not a straight-line collapse against a higher-level opponent, but a match in which the favorite could not hold off the physical effects long enough to finish what he had started.
The French Open’s heat rule is tied to Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, not the air temperature alone, and a French Tennis Federation spokesperson said the heat on Thursday was not enough to trigger it. Under that rule, if the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature reaches 86 degrees or higher, some matches can include 10-minute breaks between sets; if it reaches 90 degrees, outdoor matches are suspended. There have been no suspensions at this year’s tournament, even as players have dealt with punishing conditions.
The result also fit a pattern Sinner has known before. He has trained in hot weather to build up his reserves, and he won the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in March against Daniil Medvedev on a baking hot day. But that preparation did not save him here, and the loss follows a near miss in January at the Australian Open, where Novak Djokovic eventually defeated him after Sinner came close to going over the edge physically.
For now, the bracket has changed and Sinner’s stay in Paris is over. What remains is the sharper question the match left behind: whether the heat, the illness he woke up with, or the combination of both was the real force that stopped him just before the third round.
