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No Challenges Remaining

2026 French Open: Sinner Collapses; What's Left Without Him?

5/29/202658 min

Ben and Tumaini come together after one of the most shocking matches of our tennis lifetimes, with prohibitive favorite Jannik Sinner taking a commanding 6-3, 6-2, 5-1 lead before promptly stopping winning points and games, ultimately listlessly falling in five sets to Juan Manuel Cerundolo.

This episode has two big components: what happened to Sinner and why, and what's left of the field without him. Somebody else, stunningly, is going to win the 2026 French Open. But whom?

A reminder that is still a 15% discount on Bounces subscriptions during this French Open!

Thank you for listening! Our Patreon is back up and running to ensure NCR keeps going and stays ad-free, and we hope you can join in supporting NCR! And we especially thank our GOAT backers: Pam Shriver and J. O'D.

Clips

Sinner Completely Unplugged
‘Try To Vomit’ Timeout
Press-Room Stampede Chaos
Fan Yells ‘Sinner Out!’
Biggest Collapse They’ve Covered

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Tumaini Carayol· Host0:00

    Miss Ostapenko has no challenges remaining Welcome to No Challenges Remaining.

  2. Ben Rothenberg· Host0:04

    I'm Ben Rothenberg, joined late on this, uh, Thursday night, early Friday morning, by Tumani Carayol, NCR's Spain and Sub-Saharan Africa correspondent and The Guardian's tennis correspondent. Tumani, your face looks like you're- you're feeling things.

  3. Tumaini Carayol· Host0:19

    I mean, I'm just wondering, are days real anymore?

  4. Ben Rothenberg· Host0:22

    No.

  5. Tumaini Carayol· Host0:22

    Like, no- nothing is real. Nothing makes sense.

  6. Ben Rothenberg· Host0:23

    Especially with the third, with three-day first round, you're still, it takes a while to get your rhythm back, 'cause it just throws off. 'Cause sometimes, like at Wimbledon, I feel like I wanna know what day it is.

  7. Tumaini Carayol· Host0:31

    Yeah, yeah.

  8. Ben Rothenberg· Host0:31

    Other places, less so.

  9. Tumaini Carayol· Host0:33

    And, and just when it seemed like we were getting into a r- rhythm.

  10. Ben Rothenberg· Host0:36

    Our lives, our lives, uh, w- what was- Changed forever ... I was gonna, no, it wasn't, well, that's a bit dramatic, Tumani. [laughs] But I was gonna say, uh, the, what's the, what's the Fresh Prince thing? Like, turn, flip, twist upside down something. This tournament at least did. The men's draw did. We are doing this podcast on the day where basically Serena's comeback was essentially confirmed, and yet we're not gonna cover that [laughs] because- Yeah ... it got so overshadowed. We're mostly just gonna focus on this late night show on this specific huge event and its ramifications, which was in the first match on Chatrier, which was already surprising it was the first match on Chatrier, different issue. But in the first match on Chatrier, Jannik Sinner, the top seed and overwhelming favorite to win this French Open, was up six to five to, sorry, six, excuse me, six three, six two, five one- Yes ... on Juan Manuel Cerundolo.

  11. Tumaini Carayol· Host1:24

    Can I just stop you there? I, I just wanna ask what, what you were doing at that point. Like, what, what, what you were, you know,

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