Mac: Only One Opponent Can Stop Sinner in Paris

By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, May 21, 2026
Photo credit: David Gray/AFP/Getty

Striking with force of nature ferocity, Jannik Sinner has completely leveled the landscape of challengers.

Home hero Sinner swept Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 to capture his maiden Rome championship, record sixth straight Masters 1000 crown and send Foro Italico fans into a sing-song tribute chant of “Ole! Ole! Ole! Ole! Sinner! Sinner!”

The 24-year-old Italian scored his record-extending 34th consecutive Masters 1000 match victory hitting his way into history. Sinner joins Grand Slam king Novak Djokovic as just the second man in Open Era history to complete the Golden Masters—winning all nine ATP Masters 1000 championships—and he’s the only man to sweep six in a row at the 1000 level.

Riding a 29-match winning streak into a Roland Garros draw devoid of arch-rival and defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, Sinner is an overwhelming favorite to win his maiden French Open title.

“Carlos not playing is a bummer—it sucks is the bottom line, but it does open the door for a bunch of other guys to make runs they weren’t ever going to potentially make,” TNT analyst John McEnroe said.

Hall of Famer John McEnroe knows how it feels to dominate the sport as Sinner is now and says there’s only one opponent who can stop Sinner in Paris: Extreme heat.

The forecast calls for scorching temperatures to hit or exceed 90 degrees in Paris for the first four days of the tournament. 

Sinner, who struggled with cramping and heat illness surviving American Eliot Spizzirri at the Australian Open and overcame sickness beating Daniil Medvedev in Rome, will only be vulnerable if the Mercury is menacing in Paris, McEnroe told the media in a TNT Zoom call to promote TNT’s Roland Garros coverage starting on Sunday, May 24th at 5 a.m. Eastern time.

“To me, ultimately it’s Sinner against the field,” John McEnroe said. “I’d take Sinner right now. 

“The best way to beat Sinner, in my opinion, would be like the weather. The heat gets to him. Something like that. I think someone who is physical enough, who is in a position to maybe take advantage of that [extreme weather].

“But that’s seemingly the only way he’s going to lose to either of these guys at this point.”

In fact, creating a punishing physical battle waged amid heat is also Daniil Medvedev’s prescribed path as the only way to stop Sinner.

“Whenever someone is going to be good enough to play against Jannik in the baseline game, because there is no other way to win, it’s going to be struggle for both,” Medvedev said after falling to Sinner in a strenuous three-set Rome semifinal. “We saw in Monte-Carlo, he was struggling as well, but he won. That he struggles is not a problem for him to win. 

“The only kind of chance you have is to play this 30-shot rally, try to win them. Then you both going to struggle.”

If you think hoping for heat is a stretch in stopping Sinner, consider McEnroe know first-hand how draining it can be to battle both the elements—and expectation of carrying an expansive winning streak into a Grand Slam tournament. 

Queens native McEnroe, who combined sculptor’s feel and surgeon’s precision with sniper’s thrill for the kill producing one of the greatest single seasons in tennis history. 

In 1984, McEnroe delivered a mind-blowing 82-3 season capturing 13 titles, including Wimbledon and the US Open. The late writer Frank DeFord called it one of the most dominant single seasons he’d ever seen from any athlete in any sport.

The mercurial McEnroe charged into the 1984 French Open final riding a 42-match winning streak—with successive clay-court blow-out finals wins over opponent Ivan Lendl—and took a two-set lead in the final only to fall victim to Lendl and the heat 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 5-7, 5-7 in an agonizing ‘84 French Open final. Reflecting on that hot summer day Paris when his winning streak and dream died in the dirt, the wounded former No. 1 calls the most gut-wrenching loss of his career and one “I still have nightmares about.” 

Though he arrived in Paris feeling unbeatable, McEnroe said invincibility is a double-edged sword that feels like a super power or a bulls-eye on your back—sometimes in the course of the same match.

“I believe it actually can be both and it can be both in the same match. I mean as evidenced by, unfortunately I’ve been forced to think about this way too much in the last hour or two, the match that I lost there [at 1984 Roland Garros] where I sort of did feel invincible and then it sort of put a burden and stress on myself and then it ended up costing me,” McEnroe told Tennis Now. 

The Hall of Famer concedes heat and pressure sapped his strength in the ‘84 final and asserts those two factors are the biggest threat to Sinner’s quest to win Roland Garros and complete the career Grand Slam at age 24.

“It’s pretty much what I’ve been saying: The only way Sinner is going to lose is if the heat gets to him,” McEnroe told Tennis Now. “That was part of the factor for me as well—it sort of cost me the match. So these are the types of things that can happen. 

“The invincibility part you feel you come on the court with a lot of confidence and you use that to your advantage, but it can become a burden—the pressure—if you sort of let it get to you.”