Expected the best. Got better.
CHIARA MARQUET
NEW BUSINESS & MARKETING EXECUTIVEThe wrong tournament. The right story. Every day, something unexpected happened.
Roland Garros 2026 didn't give the world the tournament it expected. It gave it a better one.
Alcaraz – the two-time defending champion – was gone before a ball was struck. Sinner, world number one and unbeaten in 30 matches, led 6-3, 6-2, 5-1 in the second round before the Paris heatwave took hold – and didn't win another game. 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic was sent out in the third round by 19-year-old Brazilian João Fonseca. Defending champion Gauff exited in the third round. Four-time winner Świątek fell in the fourth. World number one Sabalenka – a set and double break up in her quarter-final – lost the final ten games. Matteo Arnaldi withdrew due to illness an hour before his semi-final, handing Cobolli a walkover to his first Grand Slam final.
Image by: @como1907srl
“Como is not just building a lifestyle brand for themselves; they are building the infrastructure to sell that model to the wider global football industry.”
And amid it all, Gaël Monfils – 39 years old, 19 appearances at his home Grand Slam – played his final match on Court Philippe-Chatrier, joined on court afterwards by Gasquet, Simon and Tsonga for a farewell that marked the end of a generation of French tennis.
Into that chaos stepped the stories no one had scheduled. 17-year-old Frenchman Moise Kouame became the youngest French player to reach the Roland Garros men's singles third round in the Open era, conducting the crowd on Court Suzanne-Lenglen in a nearly five-hour epic – down 3-5 in the fifth and still believing. Maja Chwalińska – ranked 114th, unsponsored, contesting just her third Grand Slam main draw – became the first qualifier in Open Era history to reach the Roland Garros women's final. 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva took the title, becoming the youngest women's singles champion in Paris since Monica Seles in 1992. Alexander Zverev won the men's title on the same court where a rolled ankle had ended his 2022 season – the first German man to win a Grand Slam singles title since Boris Becker in 1996.
Image by: @como1907srl
Heatwaves, wind, walkovers, and the relentless removal of every favourite. Roland Garros 2026 was Sports Entertainment at its most unscripted – and its most watchable.
Sport doesn't always need the biggest names to tell the biggest story.