In another first-round flameout, surly Sock falls in 5 to No. 136 Zopp

Waxing on Paris, the writer Victor Hugo once said, “Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic.”

Jack Sock can relate. Last November, Paris was heaven, the city where Sock had surged from 24th in the rankings to win his first ATP Masters 1000 title and earn a spot in the ATP Finals. By the end of 2017, Sock’s ranking had soared to a career-high of eight.

Sock’s 2018 had been far less productive. He arrived at Roland Garros having gone 5-10 on the year. Still, he was seeded 14th and was expected to handily dispose of Jurgen Zopp, a lucky loser ranked 136th—especially when the American went up two sets to one and took a 4-1 lead in the fourth-set tiebreaker.

The lead soon vanished. Off the two went to a fifth. Sock was 4-3 in five-setters, Zopp 1-3.

But even prior to the tiebreaker, Paris was already becoming hell for Sock. One major reason for Sock’s anguish was a series of calls from chair umpire Paula Vieira Sousa that he believed strongly impacted the outcome of the match. At one point Sock requested Sousa be replaced. At another, according to journalist Jose Morgado, Sock said, “I can do whatever I want as a player. You wouldn't be here without me.”

This is precisely the kind of mean-spirited talk that makes Sock come off less like America’s great hope and more akin to the frat boy bully in a teen movie.

But the bigger cause of Sock’s discontent was Zopp’s rock-solid play. With his pallid grey outfit and light complexion, Zopp gave off the look of a Kyle Edmund understudy. (Edmund, by now, familiar to many as a Jim Courier understudy.) If Zopp’s play wasn’t exactly inspired, it surely was air-tight, composed and forceful, the Estonian repeatedly driving the ball hard, deep and accurately—and to the extent possible, towards Sock’s much weaker backhand.

In theory, the fifth set promised much.  The match took place on Court 18, a new court at the furthest west end of Roland Garros that holds a tidy 2,158 patrons. Just past 6:30 p.m., the rain of earlier having cleared, the sun beginning its descent to the west, the stage was set for a crackling good set of tennis.

But little in Sock’s body language or tennis conveyed confidence. Serving at 1-2, 30-love, he snatched lazily at a forehand to lose one point, performed similarly on the next with a backhand and netted another backhand to face break point. A down-the-line forehand winner brought Sock back to deuce, and in time it was 2-2. For all that, this was a man more weary than eager.

The 3-4 game told the story. On each of the first two points, Sock attempted drop shots. Bail out or genius?  The first worked, the other didn’t. From 15-all, Sock played three lackluster points: wide backhand, forehand into the net, another forehand into the net.

Zopp, cucumber-cool all through the fifth, faltered twice when trying to serve out the match, netting a forehand and shanking one to go down love-30. But then, sparked by an ace down the T, Zopp took four straight points to earn the third Grand Slam singles match win of his career.

WATCH: Match highlights

Sock has now lost three consecutive first-round matches at majors; his post-match press conference lasted less than three minutes. Out of respect for a man who was clearly dazed in defeat and searching for answers, it’s not worth printing any of his words.

Per Victor Hugo again: “He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo.”

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