The world's number one player Janik Siner and the biggest rival Novak Djokovic finished participating in Roland Garros in the second round, after being defeated by Juan Manuel Serundolo on Thursday. Siner won the first two sets with 6:3 and 6:2, and in the third he had an advantage of 5:1, when a big change followed.
The Italian tennis player then lost 18 points in a row, which Serundolo used to reduce the gap to 5:4. At 5:4 and 0:40 into his serve, Siner requested a medical timeout and left the court due to nausea and dizziness. After returning to the field, the Argentine won the third set with a score of 7:5, and then the next two with 6:1 and 6:1. Serundolo thus won 18 of the last 20 games in the match and secured a place in the next round.
The break that Sinner requested in the middle of the game drew attention, especially because of the moment in which it was taken, at 0:40 into his serve. Medical timeouts during the game are rare and occur in emergency situations. Such things often happen to Siner when his game is in decline.
What does Siner's defeat mean for Novak Djokovic?
With the departure of the number one seed, Djokovic's chances of winning the 25th Grand Slam increase, but not significantly. The Serbian tennis player, who today in the third round plays against the unpleasant Brazilian João Fonseca, remained the only tennis player in the draw with a Grand Slam title.
Photo: AP Photo/Thibault Camus/FoNetNovak Djokovic celebrates his victory at Roland Garros
However, the Serbian tennis player's path to the finals remains demanding. In case of victory over Fonseca, Djokovic's next opponent could be Casper Rudd, a two-time finalist of the tournament in Paris. Then, in the quarterfinals, potential opponents of the Serbian tennis player are Alex de Minor, the seventh ranked tennis player in the world, Jakub Menšik, a young Czech tennis player, and Andrej Rubljov, the former fifth ranked player in the world. In the potential semi-final, it is expected that his opponent will be Alexander Zverev, who is the second seed of the tournament and now the first favorite according to bookmakers.
Siner's doping history
Yannick Siner tested positive for closteball during the Masters Tournament in Indian Wells and Miami in March 2024. It is a prohibited anabolic substance that is on the list of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and is used for tissue recovery and increasing muscle mass.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted Sinner's team's explanation that there was no intention to improve performance. According to their version of events, the contamination occurred accidentally, after a physiotherapist used a spray containing clostebol to treat a cut on his finger and then massaged the Italian tennis player without gloves. Because of this, Siner was not suspended at the time, which caused a lot of backlash among the players, especially after the case had been out of the public eye for months.
Additional controversy was caused by the World Anti-Doping Agency's decision to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. WADA considered that the tennis player, according to the rules on the athlete's responsibility for his team, still has to bear certain consequences regardless of whether the substance was ingested intentionally. The process ended in early 2025, when Sinner accepted a three-month suspension for failings within his coaching staff, while WADA said there was no evidence of intentional doping or attempted performance enhancement.
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