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The Changing of the Changing of the Guard…the 2026 French Open

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Moseley Moles’ semi regular roundup of the tennis. In the sliver of sports limelight between the Champions League final and the World Cup, I think the French Open delivered pretty much what you’d want from a Slam fortnight. Great matches, upsets, existing narratives completed and new ones started.

Not a good tournament – it seldom is – for the plucky Brits who sadly faded away over the first few rounds, but the thunderbolts were elsewhere. First up was Jannik Sinner’s heat-induced collapse, bundled out by Cerundulo (no me neither). This was the first of many many matches in which the more experienced players were swept aside by the young and the unfancied. It was perhaps little surprise to see Medvedev (one of the only players born in the nineties to win a slam) exit with little fuss, but Sinner was the heaviest favourite for a slam in living memory.

With Sinner gone in round two was it finally, after three years, the year in which Djokovic won that elusive 25th slam to go clear at the top….no he would go out in the third round in the match of the tournament. Fonseca had lots of hype but little profile beyond the inner circles of the tour, not any more. Two sets down to the ultimate grinder, he unleashed a brutal forehand along with a range of passing shots and a fine all-round attacking game . Get this – he wasn’t born when Djokovik was playing at the French open for the first time. In the famous ‘changing of the guard match’ Federer like Fonseca was 19, Sampras a mere 30, 9 years younger than Novak. He will give it his all again at Wimbledon, but I suspect old father time will finally claim him and he will have retired this time next year.

Along with Fonseca (19), Mensik (19) and Jodar (20) swept aside older and more established players throughout the first and second weeks. It’s doubly hard to see anyone who has not already won a slam – Zverev (oh wait), Auger-Aliassime, Shelton, De Mineur, Fritz, Bublik, Ruud and so on – now doing so. Not only do they have to hope that one or both of Sincaraz is injured, they have to contend with these young upstarts.

The entertainment and upsets largely stopped at the semis – Zverev ground out a win over a clearly exhausted Mensik, and rank outsider Arnaldi didn’t even make the court for his semi. So to the final, another attritional game higher on drama than quality. Watching Zverev struggle with a popular underdog, and the overwhelming feeling that he would never, ever be in a better position to win a slam, was fascinating. Good though Cobolli was, Zverev’s cautious game was always likely to be enough and he coasted through an anti-climactic fifth set.

The women’s draw saw much the same first week – chaos that laid waste to Swiatek (a 4-time French champ), Rybakina, Pegula and Gauff over the first few rounds, leaving a host of lesser known players to rise to the semis and beyond (Shnaider, Kostyuk, Potapova and the first qualifier to make a final since Radecanu, Chwalinska).

As ever in the women’s game at the moment, the narrative is around Sabalenka. When she’s on form, as in her match against Osaka, she has the aura of a Williams or a Graf – just playing at a complete level above everyone else. Her movement, shot weight and serve make it seem unfair against almost everyone else. However, has there ever been a player with more talent yet more prone to the yips? And so it was against Diana Shnaider, when the wind got up and from 6-3 4-1 up, and with a chance to serve for the match at 5-4, she ended up losing 6-3 4-6 0-6. I didn’t see the final, but it seemed to be a fairly straightforward affair for Andreeva, another new champion.

Another new generation, the continued railing against the dying of the light that is Djokovik, and the continued absence of Alcaraz. Can’t wait for Wimbledon.

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Comments

  1. Injuries is a big thing at the moment in tennis. The calendar is now so loaded that its rare to see a slam with everyone present. Did it matter to Andreeva or Zverev? I don’t think so. There are no asterisks in tennis really (drug cheating excepted). You beat the seven players in front of you and then you’re the champion. Seeding helps, but only one player emerges undefeated.

    And of course the other big Talking Point, or Opinion Point, is your attitude to Zverev. He’s working hard to rehab his public image, but he’s never going to be loved as a player.

    I didn’t mean to say I welcomed Alcarazi’s missing Wimbledon, but it does mean we won’t get another Sinner/Alcaraz final.

  2. My son is working at Wimbledon this year in their Broadcast Services and is able to get us some free tickets for one of the days, probably in the early stages. I have never been and getting in free has piqued my interest, but I don’t really know that much about tennis, (apart from the rules!) or the Wimbledon experience, so what should I look out for?

    • I went once, on a school trip in the 80s. In those days the cheaper tickets entitled you to wander around the outside courts (all of them except Centre, 1 and 2) until you found a game that held your attention. Our attention was drawn to a women’s match in which one of players had spectacular legs. We were told that we could approach people leaving the bigger courts and asking if we could use their tickets for the rest of the day if they were leaving. I suspect that is no longer possible but am ready to be corrected.

      • I went regularly in the 70s when my then girlfriend had the hots for John Newcombe. Her mum had a sugar daddy in the rotund shape of Lord Goodman, the legendary fixer and Harold Wilson’s lawyer. She used to go and see him regularly and submit to being spanked on the bottom with a hairbrush in return for large wads of cash, kids’ school fees etc. Very weird.

        Anyhow Goody, as he was known in the family, always had centre court tickets but left not long after lunch and gave them to us. Very fancy they were, not far from the royal box.

      • I think most of that is still the case but people can officially hand their show court tickets in on leaving and they are then resold at a discount. In the 80s I was once offered tickets for men’s finals day, the rub being they were for no. 1 court rather than centre so it would have been some junior final or something. I didn’t go

        About 10 years ago I went to see Federer play Zverev in Montreal, I bought the ticket in advance and if the seedings had worked out it would have been a Federer v Nadal final, but the Spaniard had been eliminated earlier. Zverev won in straight sets and I was pretty sure he would win a Grand Slam sooner rather than later. He has finally won one

    • Lucky you getting free tickets! Expect vast crowds but a generally laid back and relaxed atmosphere. If the weather is decent it is a very pleasant experience, and there is a lot to see. Like any major sports event the food and drink outlets are bloody expensive. The outer courts, especially in the first week, are a hive of activity and you can wander from court to court to watch as you wish. Seeded players will be on some courts and their matches are always busy. In the second week, many of outer courts will feature matches in the youth and the wheelchair tournaments, which are also a good watch. Even if you are not a tennis fan particularly you should still have a good day out.

    • Expect to pay through the nose for strawberries and fizz. Or anything else for that matter.

      I saw Becker and Lendl back in the day. You do see so much more than on the TV, just as with most sports I find. It was intense.

      As for the changing of the guard, I expect Sinner and Alcaraz to dominate for years to come, fitness permitting. Some of these teenagers will make an impact but I don’t expect them to do so consistently.

  3. The general impression that I have formed is that tennis is possibly the sport that has been most badly served by its intense commercialisation. Money has damaged cricket in many ways, but tennis, being a sport focused upon the individual, with notable exceptions has been even more horribly corrupted.

      • I think tennis was a bit of a canary in a coalmine (actually along with cricket) in terms of spot betting and criminals influencing of match outcomes by corrupting players. We now know there’s virtually no sport where in-play betting on individual actions cannot be influenced for criminal gain.

        The lack of money outside the topmost ranks of the sport (footballers even in league one or two are picking up way more than a tennis player ranked say from 100-200 as the club pays for coaches, travel, kit, accommodation – all of this a tennis player has to fund from winnings and sponsorship) does I think make the tennis world more vulnerable potentially. But the last decade has shown any sport can fall prey to criminal gambling.

        • Am sure a little of that goes on, but his point was something else I think. Some people on social media seem to think virtually all sport is fixed, I hope there is some integrity somewhere

          • @vulpes-vulpes I’m not sure that tennis is any worse than any other sport when it comes to club shops selling overpriced tat, sponsorship and advertising on every surface in the stadium, overexcited TV coverage, and as discussed the potential for individual players to be influenced by criminals to affect the outcome of matches. All of the above has happened/is happening in cricket, football, golf basketball etc. and of course back to the ‘say it ain’t so Joe’ baseball scandal of 1919. Is it that there was a golden age of tennis free of all things commercial, well yes when you go back to the pre-open era when we had gentlemen and players, so only those who could afford to compete for expenses only could do so.

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