Jannik Sinner’s 2026 French Open choke is as haunting as it gets

In 2025, Jannik Sinner had his rival Carlos Alcaraz on the ropes at the French Open.

Notch any of three consecutive championship points, and Sinner would’ve had at least one French Open title already. It’s the only Grand Slam title that still eludes the men’s tennis superstar. Instead, Sinner let Alcaraz back into the match, who eventually stunned him in one of the greatest matches in tennis history. Full stop.

In 2026, Sinner didn’t even have to worry about Alcaraz. The Spanish dynamo is sitting out Roland-Garros as he recovers from a wrist injury. Theoretically, Sinner had a wide-open path to finally completing the career Grand Slam, as Alcaraz is usually (and understandably) the only other competitor who really gives him any problems. Instead, partly due to some dangerous heat in Paris, Sinner bowed out in the second round in one of the biggest upsets in French Open history.

Rather than finally getting the monkey off his back, without having to worry about Alcaraz, no less, Sinner will now have to wait another full calendar year before he can win at Roland-Garros.

If there is a more haunting recent stretch of tennis for a major tennis star, I can’t think of one. What an absolute disaster for one of the best athletes in the world … in back-to-back years!

From now until he eventually walks away from tennis, Sinner will likely always be one of the two best men’s players in the world. Aside from Alcaraz, he is virtually peerless, a picture of elite consistency and precision. At the age of 24, he is not done stacking Grand Slam titles. Far from it, in fact. He’s too good to expect anything less than at least one, maybe even two, Grand Slam victories every single year. You could safely pencil him in for that.

But there’s no need to deny reality. Stade Roland Garros, where the French Open takes place, is officially a house of horrors for Sinner. The way he went out in each of the last two French Opens is arguably (and probably even clearly) the worst losses of his already stellar career. The worst development of all is that Alcaraz will likely return for Wimbledon and the U.S. Open later this summer. There will likely not have been an easier Grand Slam, French Open or not, for Sinner to finish on top in for a long time. Woof.

So, until he finally breaks through, Sinner will wear these French Open defeats like black marks on an otherwise mostly spotless resume. And he knows it.

What a golden missed opportunity. Here’s hoping, in the long run, that Sinner doesn’t come to regret it.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Jannik Sinner should be haunted by French Open 2026 choke