Sinner on Shocker: I Hit The Wall

By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, May 28, 2026
Photo credit: Tim Clayton/Getty

Leaning on his Head stick as a cane, a depleted Jannik Sinner winced as the walls closed in.

Punished by brutal heat, stinging cramps and a steady Juan Manuel Cerundolo, a streaking Sinner hit the wall in Paris today.

In a seismic shocker, Sinner succumbed to searing heat, piercing cramping and Juan Manuel Cerundolo 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1 in a massive Roland Garros second-round upset. 

The 56th-ranked Cerundolo and gnawing cramps conspired to shatter Sinner’s 30-match winning streak and snap his shot of completing the career Grand Slam.

Afterward Sinner summed up a punishing physical defeat simply: I hit the wall.

“I struggled, starting to feel very dizzy. Very low of energy,” Sinner told the media in Paris. “Tried to serve it out, but didn’t have a lot of energy.

“Fourth set, I let it go a little bit trying to have a bit more energy in the fifth. Very important game the first one. Couldn’t hold. Then it went a bit downwards.

“But, yeah, woke up this morning, didn’t feel very well and tried to keep the points very short. Also in the beginning I was hitting very clean, very good, and then I just kind of hit the wall, and that’s it.”

A seismic shocker snaps Sincaraz streak of major dominance. Sinner and world No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz combined to capture the last nine consecutive Grand Slam championships, including a record three straight Grand Slam final faceoffs at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open last year.

World No. 1 Sinner falls to 37-3 suffering his first loss since 2025 Miami champion Jakub Mensik beat him on February 19th on the hard courts of Doha. On that day, 20-year-old Mensik rode vicious velocity and sharp-angled volleys to a stunning 7-6(3), 2-6, 6-3 upset of world No. 2 Sinner to charge into the Doha semifinals.

Today, Sinner was four points from a routine straight-sets win and a safe spot in the third round and air conditioning of the locker room.

Then cramps, starting in his right quadriceps and spreading over his body, sent Sinner into a spiral he could not survive.

“Middle third set [I started cramping], even though I was playing some great tennis, but really couldn’t find any energy today,” Sinner said. “It was a tough spot to be in.

“But, again, this is the sport. It was warm, but not crazy warm. I feel like it was quite okay to play. Really it was nothing against the heat, nothing against the weather. It was just me today, but it happens.”

It was odd that Sinner, clearly punished and pained in the heat, did not take the five-minute break allocated after the fourth set to escape the heat. Instead, Sinner opted to remain on court, an ice towel wrapping his neck and small fan pressed toward his face, dropped serve to start the decider and never recovered.

“I was in a tough spot in the fourth and also in the fifth at some point. I didn’t have energy, really,” Sinner said. “I was very, very flat, you know, the whole body.

“I don’t remember last time I felt this weak, but yeah, look, it is what it is. I tried to stay there with all I had today, and this was the maximum I had. Of course, a pity because I was playing really well the first couple of sets, and also the third set was playing really well. Yeah, that’s the sport.”

The red-haired, fair-skinned Sinner, a former junior ski champion from northern Italy, has suffered and struggled in the heat in the past. Sinner made a couple of escapes from heat-related cramping, including rallying past American Eliot Spizzirri (with an assist from the closed retractable roof over Rod Laver Arena) at the Australian Open and edging Daniil Medvedev in the Rome semifinals earlier this month.

Sinner carried an 18-0 clay-court record onto court today, but was haunted by the heat and wilted in the end.

“I mean, if I don’t play Madrid or if I don’t play Rome, maybe I come here and I still have a day like this where you feel sick,” Sinner said. “So, you know, looking back it’s always very tough.

“Look, I won three tournaments on clay. Incredible results. Amazing streak I’ve had. Of course, as I said, in the beginning of the year, this is my main goal here. A very early exit it was not what I was looking for, but you also don’t know if things would have changed if I would maybe skip Madrid and play only Rome or maybe skipping Rome and come here.”