Bagel Bites

Petit Choux: Hidden in Plain Sight

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled.

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

God, I love a heist movie. My all-time favorite movie genre – to the extent it’s a genre – is smart people talking. Smart people walking and talking, smart people in rooms talking, smart people doing hijinks while talking, smart people NOT talking but in their silence all you hear is TALKING. My second-favorite genre: a good ol’ heist movie. In its peak form you get smart people talking and doing a smart heist, and at it’s most basic form…you just get a smart heist. I’ll take either. I love the puzzle building of it all, the how’d they do that, the cool veneer and swagger that the heisters usually exude. It’s just a good time.

But you know what heist movie I did not like the first time I saw it? Like…did not like to the point of truly being mad and dismissive of it for years? OCEANS 12. Friends, I was so looking forward to OCEANS 12 and I walked out incredibly pissed off. Sure, the movie looked cool and it’s the most avant-garde and artsy of all the OCEANS movies. BUT.
DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I SAT THROUGH ALL THAT HEISTING ONLY TO LEARN AT THE END THAT THE ACTUAL HEIST WAS DUMB AND SIMPLE AND TOOK PLACE BEFORE EVERYTHING EVEN HAPPENED AND THAT THE COOL HEISTERY WAS JUST A FAKE NONSENSE?!?!?? You’re telling me I sat there vested in the fake heist….for nothing? Julia Roberts as Julia Roberts? The lasers? Matt Damon trying to speak gibberish? All a ruse to make you think the real heist never happened?
You mean…-I- was the mark??!?

So why, on the day that the overwhelming men’s favorite Jannik Sinner tumbled out of Roland Garros leaving behind a wake of chaos in the men’s draw, why am I talking about OCEANS 12? Because in every way, what we’re left with is precisely what was hiding in plain sight the entire time. And maybe, just maybe, the last two years was the highly entertaining ruse that covered it all up. And maybe maybe maybe, we were all the marks.

On Jannik’s quizzical second-round 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1 loss to Juan Manuel Cerundolo, I’m not sure I have much to add to all the ink and podcastery that will come. (The Athletic)
Here’s a starter pack:

This is one of the most shocking results in recent years. With last year’s champion, Carlos Alcaraz, out indefinitely due to a wrist injury, Sinner was expected to win his first French Open title and become the second man to have won every significant annual title: four grand slams and nine Masters 1000, the ATP Finals and Davis Cup. The first was Novak Djokovic.

Sinner entered Court Philippe-Chatrier on a 30-match winning streak. Despite having never won in Paris, according to some bookmakers he was an even heavier favourite coming into the tournament than anyone other than Rafael Nadal in 2009, when Nadal also failed to win. No player in the world has come close to consistently challenging Sinner’s level over the past three months.

In terms of shock factor, Sinner's 3-6 2-6 7-5 6-1 6-1 loss is reminiscent of Rafael Nadal's fourth-round exit at the hands of Robin Soderling in 2009 – Nadal's first defeat at Roland Garros in his fifth appearance.

Like Sinner, Nadal had a jam-packed schedule in the build-up to that year's French Open, winning titles in Monte-Carlo, Barcelona, and Rome and reaching the final in Madrid, where he lost to Roger Federer.

Ironically, Sinner was the heaviest favourite with the bookmakers for the Roland Garros title since Nadal 17 years ago. That was in part down to Sinner's great rival Carlos Alcaraz being absent because of injury.

But while this result is unexpected - and a huge opportunity missed for Sinner to complete the career Grand Slam - perhaps of greater concern for the Italian is his consistency over five sets.

"He’s as dominant in victory as any player I’ve ever seen, but his defeats are pure nightmare fuel: physical breakdowns, blown leads, lost match points. He’s almost always clutch, at least the kind of clutch you need to fire aces and winners at will when break point down, so it’s difficult to diagnose exactly what’s going wrong here. On the wrong days, he disappears into the background of his own matches. His record in close, long matches is so atrocious it’s become a meme. The Roland-Garros final last year, which Sinner lost to Alcaraz despite leading by two sets and a break and holding three match points in the fourth set, seemed impossible to top for trauma. He’s doing his best. So far in 2026, Sinner’s Grand Slam event efforts have included a five-set loss to Djokovic, in which he led two sets to one and went 2/18 on break points, and today."

One quick word on Ali Riske’s reaction – which was also mine initially – about Jannik getting treatment mid-game. As Ali says, the rulebook allows for a mid-game MTO only if it is an acute injury. At the time, it didn’t look like an acute injury at all. But all the on-site reporting says that he told Aurelie Tourte that he was suffering from dizziness. If that’s what he told her then yes, I think in that case you do have the discretion to allow a mid-game MTO because I don’t think the umpire or the sport in general should be ok with forcing a player to play through dizziness and risk the player collapsing on court. We can all debate whether it was actually acute dizziness or not, but I don’t think we want to put umpires in a position of calling BS on a player’s claim and risk them being wrong. For player health and safety, and given the extreme heat conditions, I can understand letting him call the trainer. So I’ll take a mulligan on that one.

Sinner says he’ll need time to “process what went wrong here.” Part of that process should, clearly, be how to prepare himself for heat, and how to handle the dizziness and cramps when they come. Alcaraz succumbed to them at Roland Garros in 2023, but had learned enough to play his way through them at the Australian Open this year. Djokovic wilted in the high temps once upon a time, but has trained his way past that problem over the years. Nadal was razzed for his ever-present water bottles and bananas, but his regimen obviously paid dividends.

For now, we can appreciate Sinner’s long run of spring dominance, and feel for him as he tries to put the nightmare end to it behind him.

Sinner looked in cruise control, leading 6-3, 6-2, 5-1 when, as he said later, he hit a wall. He spent the rest of the match nursing his leg/hip. After the match he said he woke up feeling terrible and started to feel dizzy in the match. Yes, the weather was as hot as it’s been all week. No, Sinner insisted, he did not blame the heat. Frankly, nothing really added up, but Sinner’s 30-match win streak was over, as was his bid for the career Grand Slam, and now we’re left to pick up the pieces.

Here’s where the Men’s Draw stands after two rounds. The Top 10 Seeds Remaining:

[2] Zverev
[3] Djokovic
[4] Auger Aliassime
[8] De Minaur
[10] Cobolli

In particular, let’s look at the Sinner-vacated top half of the draw. One of these players will be the Roland Garros finalist:

Juan Manuel Cerundolo
Martin Landaluce
Matteo Berretini
Francisco Comesana
Jamie Faria
[19] Frances Tiafoe
Matteo Arnaldi
Raphael Collignon
[4] Felix Auger Aliassime
[31] Brandon Nakashima
Moises Kouame
Alejandro Tabilo
[10] Flavio Cobolli
[18] Learner Tien
[25] Francisco Cerundolo
Zachary Svajda

A bit of context here: I come off of 10 years working for the WTA Tour, a tour that was, at least until recent years, incessantly derided for seeds tumbling in the first week of Slams, only to lead to a bunch of “WICKMAYER???” moments in the second week. So trust me, I GET IT.

And I will say now what I always said then: These players may be unheralded, but they’ve more than earned their spot in X round and this is a potentially life-changing match they’re about to play. And if you love the drama of sports, this is sports at its finest. As I famously – among some people anyway – say, I love tennis because on any given day of the year, someone somewhere is having the best day of their life. And that is cool and romantic as hell.
So yes, all that remains true and I stand by it.
BUT.

I would be remiss if I did not reiterate what I’ve been saying for the last year: The success and domination of Carlos and Jannik has papered over the cracks on the ATP Tour. And we’re seeing those cracks now. Because no matter how hard people will work to rehabilitate what is left in Paris, the effort and strain of doing so will be visible to all. Because unlike the WTA, where the accepted counterargument to “chaos” has been “depth”, the ATP has not earned that argument. It has literally been months now of ATP players literally saying “Whoosh, Carlos and Jannik are on a different level I cannot even put into words what they’re doing it’s insane.” YOU copped to the gap in quality. It’s hard to suddenly pivot to something else.

And so, here we are. Either we have a first-time Slam champion or 39-year-old Novak Djokovic finally wins No.25 to hold the outright all-time record, breaking his tie with Margaret Court. Is he now the betting favorite to win? No. That would be Alexander Zverev, who, if he doesn’t do it here, it’s hard to believe he’ll do it ever.

after what happened today, this part of the draw is absolutely STACKED compared to everything else

a massive tournament within a tournament will play out over the next 3 days pic.twitter.com/0ij08JMOmk
— Ricky Dimon (@Dimonator) May 28, 2026

As all that is happening in the men’s draw, there’s nothing too significant to report out of the women’s draw. Eight of the Top 10 seeds remain, with the lone exceptions being Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula.
Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova, and Victoria Mboko all won through on Friday. Also looking VERY GOOD: Naomi Osaka and Madison Keys.

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Now for some bits and bobbles before I conk out at 4am:

oop! wouldn’t be the only WC she takes during the leadups, methinks

pardon my french but GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.

Francisco Cerundolo joins his brother JM Cerundolo into the third round of Roland Garros 💪 pic.twitter.com/eUqxU0PVVD
— TNT Sports (@tntsports) May 28, 2026

moise kouame had the entirety of roland garros in his palm

reem abulleil spoke to sandra zaniewska who is awesome

Frances Tiafoe lost his racquet in the crowd while celebrating with fans… and has tried to negotiate to get it back with tickets to his next match 😅🎾 pic.twitter.com/mGSI20Ytc9
— TNT Sports (@tntsports) May 28, 2026

Tears of joy 🥹#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/xWALGjFy7v
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 28, 2026

There was a nice and lively discussion in the FD Discord – Join here! – about Jannik’s physical issues. I raised the fact that Novak used to be incredibly fragile, to the point of being a locker-room punchline:

Discord Roberto countered with a good point: Yeah, but that was Novak in his early 20s. Jannik turns 25 this year. True. But with his resources I have a hard time believing he can’t solve this issue over the next two years. And even with them, he’s still head and shoulders above the rest.

I think about Zizou Berg’s doing all sorts of tests to figure out why he cramped so often. He discovered that he was a “salt sweater” and expelled more salt than usual when he sweat. Adjusted sodium intake (literally had salt packets on court with him) solved his problem.
— Blair Henley (@BlairHenley) May 28, 2026

Look, we joke about Carlos’ flair for the random loss that seemingly come for tennis reasons. Maybe Jannik’s will come from his Victorian constitution (h/t Discord Carrie). I mean….isn’t that what we kind of say about Elena Rybakina?
Things that made me laugh today: