EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsFormidable title favorite Jannik Sinner is out of the French Open in the second round.Sinner struggled with the heat and wasted a chance to serve for the match in a 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1 loss to 56th-ranked opponent Juan Manuel Cerundolo on Thursday.Sinner was on a 30-match winning streak stretching back to February, and the odds were overwhelming that he would complete a career Grand Slam by winning the only big title missing in his tennis career -- especially with two-time reigning champion Carlos Alcaraz out with an injured right wrist.But after leading 5-1 in the third set and potentially a minute away from the locker room, Sinner sensationally lost 18 points in a row to trail 0-40 serving for the match a second time at 5-4. He bent over on the court and walked to his chair.Sinner was attended to by the medical staff and was allowed to leave the court after saying he felt sick to have his condition assessed and blood pressure taken. When he returned, he lost three more games and the set.As the match wore on, Sinner bent over on the clay court in apparent exhaustion multiple times and was hardly even running, resorting to drop shots and serve-and-volley tactics to try to shorten the points.He attempted to cool himself with a handheld fan on changeovers and put bags of ice around his neck but ultimately dropped 18 of the next 20 games. Sinner became the first men's No. 1 seed to lose in the second round or earlier since Andre Agassi in 2000."I feel sorry for him because he deserved to win a lot of matches, and of course he was deserving to win this match, but then I don't know what happened," Cerundolo said in his on-court interview.The temperature at the start of the match was 84 degrees Fahrenheit and then rose to 90. The heat has taken its toll on other players, with Casper Ruud saying he felt like a "zombie" during his first-round match while Czech player Jakub Mensik collapsed at the end of a five-set battle Wednesday.Sinner also struggled in the heat at the Australian Open against Eliot Spizzirri in January. The roof was closed, and the third-round match swung his way.As the top seed in last year's French Open final, Sinner squandered a two-set lead and three match points as Alcaraz claimed the title.Sinner's loss Thursday leaves Novak Djokovic as the only men's player left at the French Open to have claimed a Grand Slam title. It also means, for the first time since Djokovic's US Open win in 2023, a major crown will be claimed by someone other than Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz.ESPN's D'Arcy Maine, The Associated Press and PA contributed to this report.
