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Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On Day 4, there was a stunning miss, a very good day for one player and yet more heat carnage.
How did a player recover from a miss that defied belief?
The smash, when players take the ball out of the air with an overhead shot, is one of the fundamentals of tennis. Essential for finishing points, it’s also a little misunderstood. The apparent simplicity makes it easy to be complacent; it also means that making a mistake on a smash is one of the more embarrassing mistakes in tennis, and perhaps any sport.
Wednesday at the French Open, Russia’s Karen Khachanov was up match point against Marco Trungelliti of Argentina when he received the gift every player dreams of in such a big moment: A lob so feeble that they can let the ball bounce before hitting a smash. Taking the ball directly out of the air, especially when it is very sunny, can be risky. It’s all too easy to misread the flight or look at the sun and get dazzled. But Trungelliti’s lob was short enough that Khachanov, the No. 13 seed, could let it drop to a comfortable height and then dispatch it to end the match.
Or, he could do this:
Considering degree of difficulty, situation, and by how much he missed, Khachanov immediately entered worst-miss-of-all-time conversations.
The 30-year-old still had a match to win. Trungelliti broke Khachanov’s serve to level the match for 5-5 and then dragged the Russian, who could have been forgiven for melting into a puddle, into a fourth-set tiebreak. But instead of dwelling on the miss, Khachanov got over the line, securing a 7-6(5), 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(4) win to move into the third round.
An intriguing sub-plot to Khachanov’s miss was how it spread online. Tennis fans, sports fans, and people who don’t know they are tennis fans yet love mess. They love failure. They love mistakes. Official tennis accounts do not usually post these things, even though mistakes and strange moments going viral are some of the most reliable ways that a sport can reach a wider audience.
This time though, the official Roland Garros account leaned into the drama, and posted the smash on X. Bless this tennis mess.
— James Hansen
A good day for a four-time French Open champion, but a bad one for the plot?
For the second year running, the tennis gods didn’t play ball.
As at the 2025 French Open, tennis fans were one match away from the seventh instalment of the Iga Świątek vs. Jeļena Ostapenko head-to-head, only for the Latvian to fall at the final hurdle.
Ostapenko’s 6-0 head-to-head winning record over Świątek is one of the most curious sequences in the sport. Świątek has been the higher-ranked player for all but one of those meetings, sometimes by a big margin, and yet she’s never been able to post a win against a player who is almost defined by her inconsistency.
Inconsistency in every area apart from facing Świątek, where she delivers her best without fail. Seeing whether Świątek could finally end the streak at her most successful tournament was a tantalising prospect but, alas, Ostapenko fell just short — losing in three sets to Magda Linette Wednesday.
Świątek kept up her end of the bargain by comfortably beating Sara Bejlek to reach the French Open third round. A year ago she joked that she would be a terrible poker player after dissolving into giggles when trying to pretend she had no preference about playing Ostapenko or not. This time around, Świątek was more circumspect, saying in her news conference that, “I don’t want to even think about it now, because I’ll see who wins, and then I’ll prepare.”
Even if it doesn’t have the blockbuster capacity of facing the 2017 French Open champion Ostapenko, Świątek’s match against her fellow Pole Linette still has an interesting sub-plot.
It was a defeat to Linette at the Miami Open two months ago that prompted Świątek to part ways with coach Wim Fissette, after saying post-match that she was in “the worst nightmare a tennis player can have.”
Świątek’s fortunes have improved since, and Wednesday ended up being a great day for her. Not only did she win and Ostapenko lost, Elena Rybakina, the No. 2 seed who was in her draw as a potential semifinal opponent, also went out.
— Charlie Eccleshare
How did the Paris heat continue to impact the tournament?
After Casper Ruud’s struggle in the heat and Alexander Blockx’s sprained ankle, the injury carnage and temperature-related issues continued Wednesday at the French Open.
Former French Open finalist and No. 13 seed Jasmine Paolini was limping due to an apparent ankle injury and lost to Argentine Solana Sierra, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, in her second round match. Hailey Baptiste, the No. 26 seed, suffered a gruesome-looking knee injury in and had to retire in the first set against Wang Xiyu.
Then there was a nightmarish — though not unbelievable, given the weather — scene on Court 6 after Jakub Menšík won a four-hour-and-41-minute match against Mariano Navone, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(11). Menšík fell to the ground directly after match point and was unable to stand up for an extended period of time due to a cramping spell.
No. 26 Jakub Mensik collapsed after a 4 hour 41 minute match with Mariano Navone 😳 pic.twitter.com/76kDoPAbWh
— TNT Sports U.S. (@TNTSportsUS) May 27, 2026
Menšík could only roll around in the clay while he was splayed on the court. First Navone came over to check on him, then medics brought out ice and eventually, a stretcher before the 20-year-old finally rose and was later taken to the locker room in a wheelchair. He had taken a medical timeout during the deciding set.
Players are eager for the broiling weather to ease, which should happen Sunday. Temperatures have reached up to 91 degrees over the past few days, far above normal for this time of year in Paris, and the heat can feel especially brutal on outer courts where Menšík was playing, where there is little shade.
The French Open’s extreme weather policy is based on the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), which accounts for humidity, sun and wind among other factors. If the WBGT reaches 86 degrees or higher, there can be 10-minute breaks inserted between the second and third sets for women’s matches and between the third and fourth sets for men’s matches.
If the WBGT hits 90 degrees, which would require an air temperature of about 100 degrees, play is suspended. The heat rule has not been in effect yet this tournament.
— Ava Wallace
Other notable results on Day 4:
Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina (7) continued her rich vein of form with a 6-0, 6-4 win over Spanish qualifier Kaitlin Quevedo. The Ukrainian has won 8 matches in a row.
Novak Djokovic (3) overcame Valentin Royer and the home crowd with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-7(7), 6-3 win on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
Djokovic will play João Fonseca (28), after the Brazilian came from two sets down for the first time in his career to beat Croatia’s Dino Prižmić 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.
Mirra Andreeva (8) of Russia rebounded from losing the first set to Spanish qualifier Marina Bassols Ribera and turned in a 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 victory.
Shot of the day
Novak Djokovic running on to a forehand at full speed just about always spells doom for his opponents:
Drop Shots
🌝 The WTA Tour met with French Open organizers to discuss the lack of women’s matches in night sessions. There hasn’t been one since 2023.
🎲 Jannik Sinner is overwhelming favorite for the French Open men’s title. But its early rounds have been all chaos.
🤕 Alexander Blockx’s team may seek compensation after he injured his knee on a tarp during practice and had to withdraw, while Hailey Baptiste was forced to retire from her second-round match with a serious-looking knee injury.
😮 How Yuliia Starodubtseva stunned world No. 2 Elena Rybakina to record her best career win.
Up next: Second round continues
🎾 Women’s singles: Iva Jović (17) vs. Emma Navarro
5 a.m. ET on Tru TV, HBO Max
Two Americans who for most of the year have been on very different trajectories. Jović, still only 18, has been getting better and better, and after a quarterfinal Australian Open appearance in January reached a career-high ranking of No. 16 a couple of months later.
Navarro, seven years older at 25, has been headed in the other direction. She ended 2025 as the world No. 10, but had fallen last week to No. 39 after a difficult period that saw her take some time away from the sport to try and recharge.
It seemed to have the desired effect as on Saturday Navarro won the Strasbourg Open, a 500-level event a couple of rungs down from the slams, which gave her confidence a big boost.
Jović is the more aggressive player, but Navarro will hope she can bring her greater experience and solidity to bear.
🎾 Women’s singles: Donna Vekić vs. Naomi Osaka (16)
5 a.m. ET on HBO Max
A player who’s achieved great things in the sport but little of note at the French Open, against someone whose finest career moment came at Roland Garros.
Naomi Osaka, the No. 16 seed, is a four-time Grand Slam champion but is yet to go beyond the third round in Paris.
Donna Vekić, the world No. 72 but a former top-20 player, has not reached a Slam final but won the Olympic silver medal at Roland Garros two years ago.
Two huge hitters who will look to get on the front foot, this could come down to who can get the first strike in more often.
🎾 Men’s singles: Hubert Hurkacz vs. Frances Tiafoe (19)
7 a.m. ET on TruTV, HBO Max
Hurkacz has twice reached the fourth round here, while Tiafoe was a quarterfinalist last year.
But both would probably rather be playing on any surface but clay. Hurkacz was well-established in the world’s top 10 before injuries started to bite a couple of years ago and then ruled him out of the second half of last year. He’s been gradually trying to rebuild since and picked up a good win against Spain’s Jaume Munar in the first round here Monday.
Tiafoe will be the favorite though. He should have the legs if things get physical and has a more rounded game than the sometimes one-dimensional Hurkacz.
🎾 Men’s singles: Arthur Rinderknech (22) vs. Matteo Berrettini
2:15 p.m. ET on TNT
The highest-ranked Frenchman left in either draw against a former Wimbledon finalist.
Both players possess phenomenal firepower, but are at very different parts of the rankings ladder, with Rinderknech at No. 25 and Berrettini at No. 105.
Rinderknech will have huge crowd support in what should be a raucous Court Philippe-Chatrier night session, and Berrettini has been so beset by injury that even getting to the second round here is a decent achievement.
But if he can roll back the years to the period at the start of the decade when he was a Slam runner-up and world No. 6, then another home player could be in trouble.
French Open women’s draw 2026
French Open men’s draw 2026
Tell us what you noticed on the fourth day…
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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