Sinner and Sabalenka meltdowns made it a French Open full of surprises

PARIS (AP) — Jannik Sinner and his 30-match winning streak melted away during the opening week’s heat wave.

Fellow No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka had just as astonishing a mental meltdown during a quarterfinal defeat in which she described finding herself in a “very deep, deep, dark hole.”

No former major champions reached the men’s and women’s semifinals for the first time at a Grand Slam in 49 years.

The French Open that concludes this weekend has been unlike any other major tournament in recent memory.

“It’s always exciting when crazy things happen,” said Madison Keys, the 2025 Australian Open champion who reached the fourth round. “As a tennis fan, it’s been fun to watch.”

Here’s a look at some of the more surprising developments that have characterized Roland Garros this year:

Heat wave

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

After Jakub Mensik 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.

Mensik bounced back to reach the semifinals, where he lost to Alexander Zverev, who will meet Flavio Cobolli in Sunday’s final.

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 “like a zombie almost.”

Ruud conceded the fourth set 6-0 “to get my pulse and body temperature down” to see if he could recover in the fifth: "Luckily that ended up working.”

Groundskeepers at Roland Garros had to literally drench the clay courts with water at night to keep them from drying out during the day.

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

Sinner ‘hit the wall’

Already without two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, 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.

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 “very low on energy” when he needed to win just one more game against Cerundolo.

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.

“I just kind of hit the wall,” Sinner said.

Djokovic wasted a two-set lead, too

A day later it was a match for the ages when 39-year-old Novak Djokovic also surrendered a two-set advantage and lost to 19-year-old Joao Fonseca.

Djokovic, the 24-time Grand Slam champion, also had physical issues on another hot day.

“I was barely standing on my legs toward the end of the match,” he said.

Fonseca beat Ruud in the next round before his breakthrough performance ended with a loss to Mensik in the quarterfinals.

Sabalenka wanted to quit tennis after loss

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.

Sabalenka said later that she wanted “to quit tennis right now.

“You know those rooms where you just go in and you smash everything,” she added. “Probably I will spend a whole day tomorrow over there destroying stuff. Maybe it will help. Maybe not.”

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.

Mirra Andreeva beat Chwalinska for the title Saturday.

“I don’t know when was the last time that happened to me that I lost 10 games in a row,” Sabalenka said. “Mentally I got into a very deep, deep, dark hole. … I just couldn’t get back mentally on track.”

A new champion

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

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.

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

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 at the 2021 U.S. Open.

“We’ve had so many long eras of these four people are the only people that we think are going to win," Keys said. “Makes the sport interesting, at least.”

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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis