“No ghost”: Sinner dismisses French Open hangover as he speaks openly about numerous adjustments to make
Jannik Sinner insists he carries “no ghost” from his shock French Open loss, but his uneven first week on and off court keeps the question alive as the Wimbledon champion heads into a last-16 tie with Shintaro Mochizuki.
Jannik Sinner, Wimbledon 2026 | © Ch. Caillaud / PsNewz
Jannik Sinner refused to say by any mean that his shock French Open defeat is weighing on his Wimbledon title defence, telling reporters he carries “no ghost” from Paris even as he conceded another early exit could happen.
The world No. 1 was asked directly, in Italian, after reaching the fourth round on Friday, whether the memory of his second-round loss at Roland-Garros against Juan Manuel Cerundolo (3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, 6-1) still occupied his mind. He rejected the framing. “If you always think about the past, you don’t move forward,” Sinner said, insisting he was playing “very calmly” after a strong training block.
He did not, however, pretend to be invulnerable. Pressed on whether a repeat was possible, Sinner allowed that it was. “It could happen again, you never know,” he said. “That’s sport, that’s tennis.” Two days ago, he reckoned the cause of his collapse had been identified. Without naming it or pinpointing the cause, he said he and his team had worked on it but could not guarantee it would not happen again. Sinner more or less firmly denies that he was the victim of heatstroke, despite obvious signs the contrary.
Sinner’s long training days
The remarks followed a 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over American Jenson Brooksby that carried Sinner into the last 16, a cleaner performance than the five-set opener and back-to-back tiebreaks that preceded it, but still far from his full expression. He arrived at the All England Club without a grass-court warm-up, having gone straight into out-of-competition preparation after the Paris loss.
Sinner added the work away from the match court was where his reassurance lay. “I’m doing everything well off the court, in my view,” he told the reporters, describing long training days as the most he and his team could do. It was, as usual with Jannik, his answer to the ghost question: the antidote to a past defeat is present preparation, not over-reflection.
The match can be lost. That’s sport, that’s tennis.
Sinner framed his preparation as the limit of what he could control. “More than this we can’t do – I personally can’t do,” he said. “We’ve trained well, we have very long days. I’m doing everything well off the court, in my view. The match can be lost. That’s sport, that’s tennis.”
Were he not to win Wimbledon, Jannik Sinner, the undisputed world No. 1, would hold no Grand Slam title. The latest winners have been Carlos Alcaraz (US Open, Australian Open) and Alexander Zverev (Roland-Garros).
Next step is a fourth round meeting with Shintaro Mochizuki, the Japanese qualifier ranked world No. 151 who has vowed to disrupt rather than out-hit him. Sinner’s route has also eased on paper, with Daniil Medvedev, his projected quarter-final opponent, the last person who has defeated him at Wimbledon in 2024, beaten on Friday by Jan-Lennard Struff.
