Can anyone stop Jannik Sinner’s grand slam march?

It is now 93 days since Jannik Sinner last lost a tennis match – and it is hard to imagine that changing soon.

Comparisons with the Big Three are made too easily, but here it feels appropriate. At 24, the Italian has achieved something neither Roger Federer nor Rafael Nadal managed during their 20-year careers. In front of a delirious Roman crowd last weekend, he completed the career Golden Masters. Sinner is only the second man in history to have captured all nine of those top-tier ATP trophies. The other is Novak Djokovic.

For Djokovic, it was an odyssey. He started his collection in 2007 in Miami, before the last piece of the puzzle came in 2018 in Cincinnati taking him more than 11 years up to the grand old age of 31. For Sinner, it took only 33 months.

Since that February defeat (by Jakub Menšík, in case you were wondering), Sinner has gobbled up five Masters 1000 titles on a 29-match winning streak.

So to Paris, where we could see Sinner “complete” tennis. A win on the clay would make him one of just seven men to achieve the career grand slam in the Open era. Then this first half of the season could be regarded as one of the all-time greats.

In tennis, there are a handful of stand-out seasons regarded as other worldly. Steffi Graf’s Golden Slam in 1988 (all four majors and the Olympic title) and Djokovic’s 2011, where he won 10 tournaments (including three majors) and had a 70-6 win-loss record. Sinner is currently 36-2 for 2026, with five titles under his belt.

Some might call for caution. Tennis is a sport prone to fluctuation and the relentless calendar makes perfection nearly impossible. Predictions are therefore reserved for the brave (or stupid). Crucially, although Sinner is a four-time major champion, he has never won the French Open.

But the one thing that feels different about this run is the gap that exists between Sinner and the rest of the field. Since his last loss, Sinner has not only been winning, but he has dropped just three sets.

His main challenger is Carlos Alcaraz, but he has been out since mid-April with a wrist injury. Though Alcaraz was runner-up to Sinner in Monte Carlo, for the rest of the clay season the Italian has been out on his own. This week, the Spaniard said he would be out of action until after Wimbledon, leaving Sinner up to mid-July without his biggest rival.

For the fans and tournaments, it is a huge loss. In the epic Paris final last season, Sinner held match points before Alcaraz launched a stunning comeback. It was hailed as one of the greatest matches in history. Without that calibre of opponent available, it may mean a march to the title for Sinner in Paris (and beyond).

We cannot totally rule out Djokovic, the 24-time major champion, who will be at Roland Garros. He defeated Sinner in the Australian Open semi-­finals this year. But he has struggled with a shoulder injury and played only one match since mid-March, a dismal loss to Dino Prižmić, who is barely inside the top 80. Finding a run of form – especially in best-of-five-set matches – when he is this undercooked seems a stretch, even for him.

As for the rest, the second seed at Roland Garros, Germany’s Alexander Zverev, has lost his last nine matches against Sinner – including a 6-1, 6-2 dismantling in the Madrid final this past month.

The former Paris finalist, Norway’s Casper Ruud, was no match for Sinner in Rome, and newcomers Rafael Jódar, the 19-year-old Spaniard inevitably dubbed “the new Rafa”, and Brazilian João Fonseca, also 19, surely lack the legs across the best-of-five format. Daniil Medvedev was the only man to take a set off Sinner in Rome.

“The only way to beat him, you need to be at your best for all four, five sets,” said world No 7 Medvedev said. “You need to run, be strong, to serve well, to return well. Everything needs to be on the top level, because [in] his game everything is at the top level.”

Sinner’s big weapon, Medvedev explained, is how he changes direction during backhand exchanges. “I think if we compare it to any other player, the difference is that Jannik can at any moment decide to step up and go down the line. Not many can do it every time almost as a winner. He can.”

All roads in Paris still point to Sinner.

Photograph by Tiziana FABI / AFP via Getty Images