World number one Jannik Sinner suffered a shocking second-round exit at the French Open on Thursday, blowing a two-set lead to Argentina\u2019s Juan Manuel Cerundolo.
\nTop seed Sinner led 6-3, 6-2, and served twice for the match in the third set. The Italian appeared firmly in control at 5-4 in the third, but his level dropped sharply as temperatures climbed above 30 degrees Celsius, allowing the world No. 56 to take the remaining three sets 7-5, 6-1, 6-1.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t feel very well on court. I struggled, starting to feel very dizzy, very low on energy,\u201d Sinner said. \u201cI was hitting very clean, very good, and then I just kind of hit the wall.\u201d
\nThe four-time Grand Slam champion repeatedly bent over between points, used ice packs and a hand-held fan during changeovers, and later received medical treatment. Sinner admitted he had never felt so physically depleted during a match.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t remember the last time I felt this weak,\u201d he said.
\nThe defeat ended Sinner\u2019s 30-match winning streak dating back to March. Coming in as the overwhelming favorite after defending champion Carlos Alcaraz withdrew with a wrist injury, the 24-year-old had won five consecutive Masters 1000 titles, including Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome.
\nEarlier this month, he also became only the second player after Novak Djokovic to complete the set of all nine ATP Masters 1000 titles.
\nCerundolo, meanwhile, produced the biggest win of his career to reach the third round. The Argentine said he sensed Sinner was struggling physically late in the match, but concentrated on extending rallies and staying patient.
\nWith Sinner out and Alcaraz absent, the men\u2019s draw has been thrown wide open.
\nChina\u2019s Wu Yibing was also knocked out in the second round after losing 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 to Italy\u2019s 10th seed Flavio Cobolli in their second meeting of the season. Cobolli had also beaten him in the ATP 500 Acapulco quarterfinals.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve faced players with strong defense before, but today many of his returns were very deep, and even some of the high balls were difficult to handle,\u201d Wu said. \u201cHis serve and baseline game are also more suited to clay, and he controlled the rhythm of the match very well.\u201d
\nWu was making only his second main-draw appearance at Roland Garros after first qualifying in 2023. Earlier this week, he defeated American Marcos Giron in straight sets to earn his first main-draw win at the French Open.
\nThe 25-year-old said completing most of the clay-court season was itself an encouraging sign after several injury-plagued years.
\n\u201cAside from Rome, I managed to play through most of this clay season, and that was already beyond my expectations when the clay swing started,\u201d Wu said.
\nElsewhere in the men\u2019s draw, Belgian Raphael Collignon upset fifth seed Ben Shelton 6-4, 7-5, 6-4. Nineteenth seed Frances Tiafoe survived a nearly five-hour battle against Hubert Hurkacz 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 6-4, 6-7(1), 6-4. Sixth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime also advanced after defeating Argentina\u2019s Roman Andres Burruchaga in four sets.
\nIn the women\u2019s singles, world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka defeated France\u2019s Elsa Jacquemot 7-5, 6-2, while defending champion Coco Gauff beat Egypt\u2019s Mayar Sherif 6-3, 6-2 to reach the third round. Naomi Osaka also progressed after overcoming Croatia\u2019s Donna Vekic in straight sets. \u25a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
World number one Jannik Sinner suffered a shocking second-round exit at the French Open on Thursday, blowing a two-set lead to Argentina\u2019s Juan Manuel Cerundolo. Top seed Sinner led 6-3, 6-2, and served twice for the match in the third set. The Italian appeared firmly in control at 5-4 in the third, but his level …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98323,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98304\/revisions\/98323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}