On Wednesday afternoon, one of the most heart-wrenching moments of Roland Garros 2026 took place on Court 12. After 4 hours and 41 minutes of relentless tennis, 26th seed Jakub Mensik beat Mariano Navone 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (11), and as soon as the last point concluded, he scrambled down to the surface and could not get up.

The fifth set tiebreak took almost 25 minutes, and Mensik was cramping the entire time, while winning it by a close margin of 13-11. By the end of the match, he was hardly running between posts, just lurching. Navone, who was the one who was moving freely, had no answer when it mattered. The Czech continued to locate lines and somehow continued to win points on a body that was dying beneath him.

At the end of the match, Navone did not wait at the net. He walked to Mensik’s side of the court and crouched down to congratulate him there. Doctors and physios scurried out, ice was delivered onto the pitch, and the applause of the crowd rolled on during the treatment. There were concerns of possible heatstroke, with Paris currently in the middle of one of the hottest weeks the tournament has seen in years.

Eventually, Mensik stood and walked away from the court himself, despite being offered a wheelchair. That information, along with anything else you learned during the afternoon, gave you an idea of the 20-year-olds’ grit. 

Of the 24 Grand Slam main-draw matches Mensik has now played, nine, or 37.5 per cent, have gone five sets. It is the best five-set rate by any active player who has played over 20 Grand Slam main-draw matches. This was not an outlier. This is simply how Mensik plays Grand Slams.

Jakub Mensik has battled several physical issues this season. Before coming to the French Open, he had withdrawn from his Monte Carlo first-round match at the last moment due to a right toe injury. Prior to that, in January, he had reached the fourth round of the Australian Open, his best appearance at a Grand Slam to date. He was up against Novak Djokovic, an opponent he had defeated in their previous match-up to clinch his first Masters title in Miami 2025. However, the Czech had to ultimately withdraw from the match due to an abdominal muscle injury. 

The question now is whether his body can answer the bell again. He has 48 hours to recover before facing eighth seed Alex de Minaur in the third round, an Australian who did not even play today after his second-round opponent Alexander Blockx withdrew injured, and who has gone on record saying he does not mind the heat. The contrast in physical states going into that match could not be more stark.

“It’s insane to play in this weather” Jakub Mensik on the conditions at the Roland Garros 2026

Mensik did not need long to find the words for what the afternoon had cost him. “It’s insane to play in this weather and especially, you know, in front of the sun. I mean, to be there for more than four and a half hours, that’s just insane,” he said. 

The Czech also pointed to the fact that the conditions were even more difficult to regulate than the raw temperature data implies, due to limited recovery time between points and games. “Even with the breaks, you don’t have that much time. The ball boy cannot bring you a towel during the changeover and there is not that much time to cool yourself down. Even if I was struggling to put the electrolytes, it was just because of the heat, but then obviously at the end I had a little bit of cramp.”

It would be an understatement to say that a bit of cramp was what a player was dealing with at the end of a 25-minute tiebreak. However, Jakub Mensik characteristically measured his own healing. He had immediately come from court into an ice bath and then into the gym to recover. 

“I would say I’m feeling pretty well. It’s just now about to put back the strength, a lot of fluids and some food and I’ll be okay. Of course, even if it looked horrible at the end, after 30 minutes in the locker rooms when I was out of the sun, I started to feel much more better.” 

He added that he was hoping the conditions eased before Friday, but was preparing for the alternative. “I will use the recovery day as well as I can and hopefully the conditions are not going to be that crazy as today.”

The 20-year-old was far from being the only one suffering. This week, Paris has been under a heat wave with high temperatures over 40 degrees at the surface level, and it has been visible throughout all the courts of the Roland Garros. Three-time Grand Slam finalist Casper Ruud described going dizzy in his first-round match, dropping the fourth set 6-0 before recovering to advance. “It was kind of heatstroke feeling,” Ruud said, drawing a comparison to a retirement he was forced into in Washington years ago.

Novak Djokovic, who had to use the ice towels himself during his own four-set match on the Philippe Chatrier, with Valentin Royer. He made the case directly to the tournament officials. Using the Australian Open as a template, he suggested that officials should consider the move if the heat index falls below a certain level. He also recommended scheduling matches in the evening hours, a practice the Australian Open has followed previously. 

“If you have certain days that you have extreme heat and conditions, then maybe that’s something to consider,” Djokovic said. According to him, there’s no logistical reason not to protect players and fans, given that lights are there on the main courts and there is plenty of flexibility possible in scheduling. 

Mensik and De Minaur’s head-to-head stands at 1-1, with their only previous encounter coming on a hard court, making this their first meeting on clay and their first at a Grand Slam. A fully fit Mensik against de Minaur would be a compelling contest. Roland Garros will closely watch if the player who limped through a 25-minute tie-break game on Wednesday can recover to 100% fitness by Friday.