Petit Choux: Everything Falls Apart

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Roland Garros 2026: Order of Play | Draws | Live Scores

• Previously on The Bagel: Forzaaaaaaaa.

• Oh, Aryna. It was just a few months ago that I waxed poetic about Aryna Sabalenka’s ability to steel herself and stand tall in the face of immense pressure and disappointment. Her win at Indian Wells and subsequent run through the Sunshine Double seemed, in every way, to turn the page on her burgeoning reputation as a player who always got to the 1-yard line and not punch the ball through. I really thought she turned the corner on all that. And despite the clay lead-up hiccups – she was dealing with a minor injury in Madrid and Rome – her performance specifically against Naomi Osaka in the Round of 16, pointed to a level-up for the World No.1: Aryna Sabalenka was now a reliable big-match player.

• But now, after her shocking collapse to Diana Shnaider in the Roland Garros quarterfinals on Wednesday, we’re left back at square one. Once again, Sabalenka goes into the second-half of the season without a Grand Slam title. During her stretch as the indisputably dominant WTA No.1, she’s now won 1 of the last 6 majors. And her losses have been more memorable than her wins.

Sabalenka says she wants ‘to quit tennis’ after shock French Open defeat by Shnaider

Aryna Sabalenka fell apart in the last set of the quarter-final at the French Open while Diana Shnaider will go on to face the qualifier Maja Chwalinska in the semi-finals

The GuardianTumaini Carayol

• I went into Wednesday genuinely believing that Sabalenka was more of a Roland Garros title lock than Zverev. She was just SO impressive against Osaka. She stood tall in the moment, in fact, she reveled in it. She looked, in every way, like the absolute best player in the world.
• So what in the hell happened after leading Diana Shnaider by a set and 4-1 and then 5-3? I’ve heard the Sinner comparisons here, and I think they’re apt. While Sinner physically wilted in the heat, Sabalenka mentally wilted in the wind. And what’s so quizzical is….she simple shouldn’t have! This isn’t a situation like, say, Petra Kvitova, who famously hated playing in the wind, which made sense because she was a flat, precision hitter.
• Sabalenka isn’t a flat, precision hitter! She has spin! She has margin! She has developed a Plan B game that allows her to excel on clay. She has a net game that can mitigate conditions!

• All credit to Shnaider – she was so steady in the windy conditions and never blinked once Sabalenka started to teeter. But this just isn’t a result that should happen, not the way that it did. To lead 5-3 and win one game for the rest of the match? I genuinely couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Aryna Sabalenka Turns In A Textbook Meltdown At The French Open | Defector

Both No. 1 seeds in men’s and women’s singles have now exited Roland-Garros after running the scoreboard right up to the threshold of victory and then suffering bizarre, ignominious collapse. A week after Jannik Sinner seized up, it was Aryna Sabalenka’s turn to cave in. Sabalenka was up 6-3, 4-1 on Diana Shnaider in Wednesday’s…

DefectorGiri Nathan

Had she won, Sabalenka would have advanced to a semifinal against the qualifier Maja Chwalińska, a far less imposing name than Iga Swiatek or Karolina Muchova, both of whom have previously challenged her in the late stages of this tournament. In the final, she would have faced Marta Kostyuk or Mirra Andreeva, tremendous talents who have nevertheless played a match of this gravity, and against whom Sabalenka has compiled a 9-2 record. This was an easy path. There's another similarity to Sinner: Despite being the best player in the world, the French Open title continues to elude her in painful ways. It's going to hurt.

• Steve Tignor nailed precisely what had been bothering me all day when I was trying to make sense of why this collapse felt so different from Sabalenka’s past implosions: this time, she cracked when she was leading. (Tennis.com)

Sabalenka put a forehand into the net. No problem, right? She was still up two breaks and 30-15. But she didn’t act like it. Instead of shaking it off and moving on, Sabalenka bent over in frustration, the way you would expect someone who was losing badly to do. The same thing happened on the next point: After Shnaider hit a forehand winner, Sabalenka waved her hand back toward her player box in disgust.

“She’s showing a little bit of frustration, I’m not sure why,” Fernandez said.

Strange reactions turned to strange shot selection. At 30-30, Sabalenka tried a forehand drop shot from a difficult angle, into the wind, and watched it float well wide of the sideline. At break point, she went for a big second serve and hit it over the service line. Shnaider, without doing much of anything, was back in the match.

We’ve seen Sabalenka let her emotions get the better of her when she’s fallen behind in big matches on many occasions. This time, she succumbed to them when she was ahead. It was windy, the way it was when she melted down in last year’s final. Today, after a few early hiccups, she seemed to have learned her lesson and accepted the conditions. But it only took a couple of misses to make her lose her composure all over again.

WTA Backspin by Todd Spiker: RG.11- Gone With the Wind

Gone With the Wind

• On the wind: Yes, it was windy, but was it CRAZY WINDY? No. How do we know this? Well one, Shnaider played as if there was no wind. She handled it impeccably. So yes, it was playable. Second, the ball was not doing whatever it was doing here:

• I am a very loud advocate that there should be a wind rule. When conditions are UNPLAYABLE – see above – this is not useful for anyone. I was in the crowd that day. It fuckin’ sucked. I’m still finding sand in bags and caps from that day. But this was not that. It was not even close to that. Conditions – whether heat, rain, wind, cold – will almost always favor one player. And that is their right.

• So no, the roof should not have been closed because of this degree of wind. Sabalenka seemed to think the roof should have been closed. But then in the same breath, she said she didn’t ask for it to be closed because “no need."

Q.  I wondered how big a factor the conditions were, as well. It was a windy afternoon.

ARYNA SABALENKA: Yeah, that's another question. I don't know why would they keep the roof open when it's, like, it was crazy windy.

But how can I complain if almost for the whole match everything was working okay for me, but then it just slipped away. I feel like it was getting crazy maybe just because mentally I wasn't really okay.

So for me felt that it was getting crazy, but I remember even from last year, for our match, they kept the roof open, and the next day it was similar conditions, but for the guys they closed the roof just to make, I believe, better conditions and better quality of tennis.

I don't know why would they keep it open? Even though I was winning, it was very dirty tennis. I don't know how people could actually just sit there and watch me play.

I mean, then at some point she stepped in, and she played unbelievable in those conditions, but I don't know. It's a big question.

Q. Did you ask for the roof to be closed?

ARYNA SABALENKA: No, I didn't. I feel like, you know, no need.

• And so, here we are: Thursday’s Roland Garros Women’s Semifinals:

[25] Diana Shnaider vs. [Q] Maja Chwalinska
[15] Marta Kostyuk vs. [8] Mirra Andreeva

Her only Grand Slam victory before last week was at Wimbledon four years ago, when she returned to tennis after taking a hiatus to manage her mental health.

“I was struggling a lot. You know, I pushed at the beginning,” Chwalińska said of her sabbatical. “I thought that I just need to stay very strong, tough, and just keep practicing.

“But then I just couldn’t get out of bed anymore. I was just lifeless, to be honest. … I needed to take a break, and I honestly didn’t know if I was going to come back or not.

“I needed to kind of figure a few things in my head, I would say. … And I came back. I’m happy that I did.”

French Open 2026 results: Maja Chwalinska stuns Anna Kalinskaya to reach semi-finals and continue dream run

Qualifier Maja Chwalinska continued her dream French Open run as she beats Anna Kalinskaya to reach her first Grand Slam semi-final.

BBC SportHarry Poole

• What a delightful story Maja Chwalinska has been. Before this remarkable run to boost her into a Grand Slam semifinal, Chwalinska was known for two things: Being Iga Swiatek’s bestie and for a mental health break she took to deal with depression. To see her bounce back now to play her grinding style with such poise and ease, it’s truly inspiring.
• Can she beat Shnaider? It’s a tough ask. But after a run that included successfully qualifying and then beating Zheng Qinwen, Elise Mertens, Maria Sakkari, Diane Parry, and Anna Kalinskaya, one thing is for sure: something about Chwalinska’s underpowered game is making her opponents very nervous. To play a sub-100 player for a spot in your first Grand Slam final? Yeah...that would make me nervous.

• Notably for Chwalinska, which the unofficial live rankings has at No.30, is in position to be seeded at Wimbledon. That’s if she gets a wildcard into the main draw. As of now, she’s still set to play qualifying. The entry cut-off is based on pre-Roland Garros rankings. I’m not optimistic that short of winning Roland Garros that she’ll get a MD wildcard. Wimbledon didn’t give Lois Boisson a wildcard last year after she made the semis.

• There will be an Italian man in the Roland Garros final. Flavio Cobolli got the best of Felix Auger-Aliassime in four sets – despite the majority of the match being played under a roof – and Frances Tiafoe’ nightmare demon Matteo Arnaldi won the battle of Matteos after Berretini was forced to retire with a left hip injury in the second set.

• Here’s an understandably disappointed Felix afterwards, rueing a huge opportunity missed to make a Grand Slam semifinal and, potentially, first final:

On one end, like, a bigger perspective, I can't complain with my life, but I'm in a place right now with my tennis career that it's tough. You know, I'm a little bit, like, I'm destroyed today a little bit.

You know, it's tough. Like, I usually handle losses pretty well, I have to say. Like, my whole career, I was going back to training with optimism and positivity. Now I feel like I'm not the player I want to be, so today is a difficult day.

• Poor Matt. (BBC)

Anyone But

As Alexander Zverev closes in on a near-certain French Open title, a sport that once held its breath is now sighing.

BouncesBen Rothenberg

• With that, the Friday’s Men’s Semifinals are set:

Matteo Arnaldi vs. [10] Flavio Cobolli
[26] Jakub Mensik vs. [2] Alexander Zverev

How tennis players manage nerves and intrusive thoughts with milestones on the line

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 French Open quarterfinals. PARIS — On Monday at the French Open, fans on Court Philippe-Chatrier received an unexpected message from the clay below. “I almost s— my pants,” men’s quarterfinalist Flavio Cobolli said, after the 24-year-old Italian’s fourth-round win over American Zachary Svajda became more complicated than he, or the crowd, had expected. Cobolli led Svajda 6-2, 6-3, 6-7(3), 5-2 when his body started to betray him. Groundstrokes started fl

Yahoo SportsCharlotte Harpur

• The Times and The Guardian report that Wimbledon is confident its impending prize money announcement will squelch any thoughts of a player protest. (The Guardian)

The AELTC’s prize-money announcement, which takes place next Thursday, will be another critical moment in this dispute and there is anticipation over the rise. The player representatives informed the AELTC during the meeting that they expect a significant increase to their prize-money purse. The AELTC generally holds off on finalising its prize-money pool until relatively close to the announcement, allowing the club greater flexibility regarding its financial contributions.

• Owen Lewis on the improbably unflappable Marta Kostyuk. (Defector)

Recently, though, Kostyuk has been emphasizing aggression. She hits the shit out of the ball without the benefit of easy power; her whole body does the work, not just the wrist-timing blend that is the privilege of the biggest hitters. While her defense evokes a desperate kind of whiplash, her offense evokes fury. She's winning around 70 percent of first serve points in most of her matches this tournament, a healthy number in general and a spectacular one on clay. She whacks second-serve returns so hard, she sometimes loses her aim, and the shot misses or lands in the middle of the court. The silhouette of a great offensive player flickers when she fires what could have been a putaway down a wide central channel, or a forehand down the line six feet wide. But her shots are so potent when accurate that this tournament, the inconsistency hardly matters. Swiatek and Svitolina found no solace in her high unforced error counts during those matches. Kostyuk kept pace with them when her shots sailed, and left them in the dust when her shots landed. Though she’s never made a major semifinal before, it's worth wondering if anybody can keep up: She's on a 16-match winning streak, with a 17-0 record on clay this year. 

• Andy Roddick nails it: Asking Aryna Sabalenka to dance after her Round of 16 win was just cringe, stupid, and disrespectful. That’s the best player in the world who just put in a clinical and inspired performance in a primetime match. (Awful Announcing)

Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend Hosted a Party. And the Haters Showed Up

Some people just can’t tolerate Black joy.

The ContrarianThe Contrarian

Bop of the Day: Thematic.