Andre Agassi said there was no excuse for Jannik Sinner to run into a wall at Roland Garros after the world No. 1 faded so badly that he lost 18 of the last 20 games against Juan Manuel Cerundolo. Agassi, speaking as a TNT analyst on Thursday, said the collapse came after less than two hours of play and left him looking past the scoreboard and toward the way Sinner had prepared.
The criticism landed because Sinner had been in command before the match turned. He led 6-3, 6-2, 5-1 before physically breaking down, then admitted afterward, “I hit the wall.” For a player who had looked on course to cruise through the day, the sudden drop was the sort of finish that changes the conversation around a tournament, not just a match.
Agassi did not question Sinner’s effort or his physical condition. He said Sinner is fit and that it was not a matter of the Italian failing to work hard. But he still drew a line between fitness and preparation, arguing that the difference mattered more than most people think. He pointed to his own playing days, saying his body clock was about four hours in normal conditions and could shrink to roughly 3:45 or 3:50 when it got hot, with only a small stretch to about 4:10 or 4:15 on a great day. That, he said, is why he had to call out a flaw in that kind of preparation: there is something one can do about it.
The point carried extra weight because Agassi knows the event from the inside. He won the Roland Garros championship in 1999 and is one of a handful of players to complete the career Golden Slam. He also said Sinner’s exit was huge and that many people expected him not to lose a set, a reminder of how quickly a favorite can go from controlling a draw to exposing it.
There is still no public explanation for what in Sinner’s buildup left him so vulnerable in the heat, and that is the question Agassi’s criticism leaves hanging. Sinner will keep drawing attention as the tournament continues, but for now the sharper focus is on whether the breakdown was an isolated collapse or the warning sign of a preparation problem that the top player in the world cannot afford to ignore.
