Four hours and fifty-three minutes. That is how long it takes to end Novak Djokovic's afternoon at Court Philippe-Chatrier — and, for one extraordinary moment midway through the battle, the 24-time grand slam champion drops to his chair and is sick into the red clay. He has lost a two-set lead. His 39-year-old body is failing him.

And across the net stands a teenager from Brazil who refuses to blink. João Fonseca is only 19, but he plays like someone who has been waiting for this stage his whole life. Djokovic wins the first two sets 6-4, 6-4, and the script looks familiar. Then Fonseca rewrites it.

He takes the third, the fourth, and finally the fifth — 6-3, 7-5, 7-5 — in a display of nerve that draws gasps from one of tennis's most experienced crowds. "I just played," Fonseca says afterwards, grinning on court. "I just enjoyed being on court. What a pleasure it was.

" Djokovic, generous in defeat, does not look for excuses — not publicly, anyway. "He was the better player in the important moments in those crucial fourth and fifth sets," the Serb admits. He notes that Fonseca found "incredible shots, incredible lines," and insists he himself did little wrong. The loss is only the second time in Djokovic's career that he has surrendered a match from two sets up, mirroring a 2010 French Open quarter-final defeat to Jürgen Melzer.

The timing could not be more loaded. Just one day earlier, world number one Jannik Sinner had been knocked out by Juan Manuel Cerúndolo, leaving a tournament wide open that Djokovic had been circling like a hawk.