Paris has been over 32 degrees Celsius every day since the tournament began. France set its hottest day in May on record this week. The courts at Roland Garros are being drenched with water and salt between matches to keep the clay from cracking. A ball girl needed medical attention during a Rublev–Buse match Tuesday. Gabriel Diallo retired midway through his second-round match citing heat. Jakub Mensik collapsed at the end of a five-set win. Casper Ruud, walking off the court Monday, said the conditions made him feel like "a zombie." Each of those datapoints is, on its own, a Roland Garros first.
The bracket is responding. Sinner led Juan Manuel Cerundolo by two sets and 5-1 in the third before cramping; Cerundolo won eighteen of the next twenty games. It is the first time a World No. 1 has lost before the third round in Paris since 1998. Elena Rybakina, the No. 2 seed, was beaten by Yuliia Starodubtseva 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(10-4). Jessica Pegula, the No. 5 seed, was beaten in the first round by Kimberly Birrell. Two top seeds beaten before R3 in the women's draw and the world No. 1 out in the men's. The favourites' draw, by Friday morning, has lost half its top names.
Roland Garros is not the only Slam that has played in heat. It is the Slam at which, in 2026, the heat has been highest, longest, and most visibly disruptive. Today's R3 starts under the same forecast.
Roland Garros — ATP (notable upsets through R2)
Round | Match | Score |
|---|---|---|
R2 | Cerundolo d. Sinner [1] | 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1 |
R1 | Walton d. Medvedev [6] | 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 |
R1 | Basavareddy d. Fritz [7] | 7-6, 7-6, 6-7, 6-1 |
R1 | Struff d. Bublik [9] | 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-4, 7-5 |
Roland Garros — WTA (notable upsets through R2)
Round | Match | Score |
|---|---|---|
R2 | Starodubtseva d. Rybakina [2] | 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(10-4) |
R2 | Sierra d. Paolini [13] | 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 |
R1 | Birrell d. Pegula [5] | 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 |
R1 | Chwalinska (Q) d. Zheng | 6-4, 6-0 |
Sinner's loss is the headline of the season. The cramping started early in the third set; he could not move into the corners by the fourth. Cerundolo is the lowest-ranked player to beat a World No. 1 at Roland Garros since 1998 (Kucera), and the lowest-ranked player to win from two sets down at any Slam since 1973.
The men's top half is now wide open. With Alcaraz absent, Sinner gone, Medvedev gone, Fritz gone, and Bublik gone, the top half of the men's draw entering R3 is led by Auger-Aliassime (No. 4 seed) and Casper Ruud (No. 8).
The women's top eight is cracked. Rybakina and Pegula are out. Paolini, the 2024 finalist, is out. The remaining top-eight seeds (Sabalenka, Świątek, Gauff, Anisimova, Svitolina, Andreeva) all advance to R3 healthy.
Moise Kouame, 17, the French wildcard, won a five-hour, five-set first-round match. He is the youngest French player to win a Slam main-draw match since Gasquet in 2003.
🎯 PICK 1 · ALEXANDER ZVEREV · To reach the men's final
The bottom half is now the heavier half and the No. 2 seed is in form. With Sinner gone and Djokovic's draw still vulnerable to a heat-induced upset, Zverev's path to Court Chatrier on Sunday June 7 is the cleanest it has been at a Slam since 2024.
🎯 PICK 2 · IGA ŚWIĄTEK · To win the title
Four-time champion, the half of the draw she has now is missing Rybakina and Paolini, and Sabalenka's path looks no easier. Świątek arrives at every Slam this clay-court Sunday and the conditions reward her stamina more than they punish it.
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The WTA was the first tour to write a heat rule. It came in 1992, after a wave of player retirements through the early-90s Australian summers, and it has, for the last thirty-four years, allowed a ten-minute break between the second and third sets of any women's match where the on-court conditions cross a defined threshold. The ATP, for thirty-four years, did not. The argument made at the men's tour level was that the players were professionals, that they had trained for these conditions, that the body of a tour-level athlete could be expected to absorb the heat. The argument lost its hold this past December. The ATP, after a 2025 season that saw mid-match retirements rise to a record level and a Cincinnati semifinal halted at 38 degrees Celsius, voted in a new extreme heat rule. It came into effect this season.
The rule, as written, is based on the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, the same composite metric the US Open and Wimbledon already use. Cooling measures activate at a WBGT reading of 30.1 degrees Celsius and above. A ten-minute break is available after the second set, requested by either player and applied to both. Play is suspended entirely above 32.2. The numbers are aligned with the WTA's; the procedure is aligned with the WTA's. The 2026 season is the first in which both tours read the same instrument and respond in the same way.
It applies to best-of-three matches only. Grand Slam men's matches are best-of-five. The new ATP rule does not cover them.
This is the structural problem of Roland Garros 2026 in one sentence. The men's matches that are most likely to be lost to heat, the five-set matches in which a player crosses four hours of court time in 33-degree conditions, are the matches the rule does not apply to. Sinner cramped on Thursday in a match the rule would not have stopped. Mensik collapsed at the end of a five-set win. Diallo retired. None of those would have triggered the ATP's new heat protocol if they had been played in a tour event, because no tour event uses best-of-five. The Slam organisers have their own rules. Roland Garros has, in writing, a ten-minute heat break for women's matches and no formal break of any kind for men's, beyond the Slam-standard 90 seconds at changeovers. The US Open allows a ten-minute break for men between the third and fourth sets of best-of-five matches if conditions warrant; Wimbledon allows the same. The Australian Open suspends play at a Heat Stress Scale reading of 5.0. Roland Garros, the Slam most exposed to extreme heat from the new shape of European summers, has the least developed heat protocol of the four.
The argument for the existing setup is that the players are paid extraordinarily well to take the heat. It is a defensible argument when the WBGT crosses 30.1 twice a year. It is, when the same threshold is crossed five days in a row at the same Slam, a position that has not aged with the climate. The CNN climate report this week concluded that the current Paris heatwave is at least four times more likely to occur than it would have been before the post-2000 warming curve. The ATP responded to that curve last December. The Slams have not yet.
The other half of the conversation is the players themselves. Several have publicly asked for a unified rule. Ruud was the most vocal Monday. Mensik, Tuesday, said the conditions were not acceptable. The argument against unification is that men's tennis history is built on five-set physical contests, that the best player wins not just on tennis but on stamina, that a heat break interrupts the rhythm of a Slam match in ways the players themselves cannot fully predict. The argument carries weight when the heat is occasional. It does not, when the heat is every day for two weeks in a Paris May.
The rule that does not yet exist is the one that will, by the next Roland Garros, be the conversation that defines whether the men's draw plays inside the new conditions or outside them. The players will keep playing. The clay will keep being watered. The ball boys and girls will keep collapsing. The instrument is the WBGT. The reading, today, on Chatrier, is forecast at 31.4.
Jannik Sinner vs Juan Manuel Cerundolo - FULL Match Highlights | Roland Garros 2026
The biggest men's Slam upset of the season; the Argentine takes eighteen of the final twenty games against a cramping World No. 1.
French Open Day 4 - A frenzy of drama, injuries and upsets
The full Day 4 package: Rybakina out in three to Starodubtseva, plus the rest of the chaos.
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A compact recap of the first-week surprises; useful for catching up in one sitting.
Best Points Of The Day | Day 4 | Roland-Garros 2026
The official tournament highlight reel from Thursday; quality tennis in three-quarter speed and no commentary.
Roland Garros · May 24 – June 7 · Grand Slam · Outdoor clay · Stade Roland Garros, Paris
R3 begins today. Świątek, Sabalenka, Gauff, Andreeva, and Svitolina all play their third-round matches Friday or Saturday. Cerundolo plays Tien or Berrettini, with the winner taking the open R4 slot in the top half. Zverev, Djokovic, Auger-Aliassime, and Ruud all alive. Women's QFs midweek; men's QFs Tuesday/Wednesday. Women's final Saturday June 6; men's final Sunday June 7.