The beautifully inconsequential French Open early rounds are a chaotic balm to the men’s draw

PARIS — A Grand Slam typically plays to a familiar and linear rhythm.

They start slowly, interest builds around the middle, and then they reach a crescendo at the end.

In the men’s draw at this year’s French Open, different dynamics are at play. The complete dominance of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who have won the last nine majors between them, means that matches of true consequence only really come at the very end. Either they play each other in the final, they play each other in the semifinals, or one of them loses at that stage. As a result, the tournament typically sags in the middle, as neither comes close to losing. A rotating cast of would-be challengers leave as quickly as it arrives.

This time around, the latter stages are at risk of being soporific because Alcaraz is out with injury and Sinner is on a 30-match winning run. His bid for a first Coupe des Mousquetaires, which would complete a career Grand Slam, has few viable opponents standing in its way. On Tuesday night, Sinner dispatched the French wild card Clément Tabur 6-1, 6-3, 6-4. In the first two sets, the Court Philippe-Chatrier crowd cheered the Frenchman’s every point like it might be his last.

But there is another kind of excitement on offer at the majors that arrives much earlier and disappears just as quickly. The early rounds may take time — especially with three of the four majors playing them over three days, rather than two — but they also bring compelling subplots, marvelous matches and moments of liquid chaos, which may not be consequential but linger long in the memory. Players are achieving career milestones in just being there; whatever the result of their match, there is meaning beyond its contribution to the final bracket.

The women’s draw conforms to this too, but it also has a suite of genuine contenders who will clash later in the tournament. On the men’s side, the kicks of the early round are a reminder that a Grand Slam is never about just two men, nor one.

On the opening day, there was immediate controversy, an inevitable consequence of the tournament’s decision to use line judges instead of electronic line calling (ELC).

France’s Pierre-Hugues Herbert was so enraged by what he felt was a case of a chair umpire misreading a ball mark that he said to the official: “Look me in the eyes. You are going to see it, it’s going to be out, and you are really… If you don’t say sorry after that one, I will never speak to you again.”

The umpire stuck with his call, Herbert had has serve broken in the fifth set by Lorenzo Sonego, and he went on to lose the match. After coming through qualifying to reach his home Slam one more time at 35, it was a rough way for him to exit, and the incident reopened the debate about whether Roland Garros should join most of the rest of the sport in removing human officials from the court.

Come Monday, it was time to say goodbye to two legends of the sport. Stan Wawrinka, at his last Roland Garros, lost a gripping four-setter to the Dutch lucky loser Jesper De Jong on a raucous Court Simonne-Mathieu. Seeing Wawrinka, 41, collapse on his back after a gruelling penultimate point in sweltering heat, felt like the perfect encapsulation of what one of the game’s great maximizers was about.

It was wringing every last drop out of himself that won Wawrinka three Grand Slams in the toughest era in the history of the sport. Neither he nor De Jong are ranked in the world’s top 100; none of that mattered on Monday afternoon.

In the evening session, it was the turn of Gaël Monfils to play his last French Open match. He may not have won the titles Wawrinka did, but he will leave the sport a legend for how he inspired so many players, and cut through tennis’ reputation as a stuffy, buttoned-up sport. His match against Hugo Gaston, played on a packed Court Philippe-Chatrier, lacked the quality of Wawrinka against De Jong, but there were still some spectacular rallies and a five-setter was a fitting way for Monfils to bow out.

The defeat was also less about the result and more the way in which it felt like a communion, with 15,000 people joined in their love and admiration for the departing Monfils.

In between those two send-offs came a couple of extraordinary five-setters.

On Court 6, Thanasi Kokkinakis was playing his first Grand Slam match for 16 months, and first since the radical surgery that involved a dead person’s Achilles tendon being attached between his right pectoral muscle and shoulder. For him to even be on the court was an achievement — to beat Térence Atmane in nearly four and a half hours, having trailed 5-2 in the decider, defied belief. The contest was so compelling that fans watched it from the Chatrier stairwells, as Atmane delivered one of the most memorable shots of the tournament by missing an overhead entirely in what proved to be the penultimate game.

Over on Court Simonne-Mathieu, a stranger five-setter was playing out. Casper Ruud, the No. 15 seed and two-time former finalist, led Russia’s Roman Safiullin by two sets to love, and held three match points on his own serve at 5-3, 40-0. Ruud missed them, and then began to feel dizzy and low on energy in the heat. He lost the next 10 games, and looked on the verge of collapse.

But then, Safiullin, who looked set to cruise to victory, suffered a hip injury. This led to a surreal sight at 5-0 in the fourth set, with Safiullin flat on his back receiving treatment for a hip injury while a dazed Ruud tried to revive himself with an ice towel. Both players were so inhibited for the final game of the set that the level of play resembled something from a local park. Ruud eventually won the match 6-2, 7-6 (5), 5-7, 0-6, 6-2.

In his news conference, he said that he felt like a “zombie,” before describing his comeback as “jump-starting a dead body.”

After the goodbyes of Monday came the welcome party of Tuesday. Moïse Kouamé, a 17-year-old from France blessed with huge talent and a maturity beyond his years, took out former U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic in straight sets, also on Simonne-Mathieu. As introductions to the wider tennis world go it was eye-catching, and it felt fitting that with Monfils bowing out, French tennis found another potential star to root for.

On Court Suzanne-Lenglen, meanwhile, the No. 6 seed Daniil Medvedev produced a typically uneven performance to lose in five sets to the Australian world No. 97 Adam Walton.

Of all these players, only Medvedev and Ruud could be considered potential challengers for Sinner. And even they have lost a combined 15 of their last 16 matches against the world No. 1.

But while these first-round matches will almost certainly prove inconsequential to the tournament’s ultimate outcome, this is often the most entertaining stage of a Grand Slam in the current moment of men’s tennis.