Jannik Sinner discusses his Eiffel Tower Lego project after 1st-round win at French Open

PARIS (AP) — Jannik Sinner already started building a miniature Eiffel Tower with Lego blocks. Now he's begun his pursuit of an elusive French Open title, too.

Sinner’s first match back at Roland Garros after his dramatic five-set loss in last year’s final couldn’t have been more different than that epic encounter with Carlos Alcaraz.

Playing in a first-round night session on Tuesday, the top-ranked Sinner routed 171st-ranked French wild card entry Clement Tabur 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 to extend his winning streak to 30 matches as he chases the only big title missing in his tennis career.

“I’m very happy to be back here,” Sinner said. “Great memories overall.”

To get himself in the mood for Paris, Sinner and his brother started on their Eiffel Tower Lego project when he spent a few days at home in northern Italy after his recent Italian Open title.

“We tried to finish it. We couldn’t. Because they are always the same pieces together. So at some point it’s very boring. But you know we are we are not far away, so I know after this tournament I go back home and and then I’m going (to) send you guys a picture when it’s finished,” Sinner told the crowd on Court Philippe-Chatrier. “Hopefully — if we don’t miss any pieces.”

The 24-year-old Sinner, who has won five straight tournaments, has been missing hardly anything on court lately and is an overwhelming favorite for the French Open title with Alcaraz sidelined due to a right wrist injury.

The only issue for Sinner came when he wasted three match points on Tabur's serve at 5-4 in the third set. Then he called for a trainer on the changeover and had his right foot tended to for an apparent blister.

But he served it out in the next game.

Sinner has won the Australian Open twice and Wimbledon and the U.S. Open once each. After losing three match points in the 2025 final to Alcaraz, he still needs a French Open trophy to complete a career Grand Slam — something that Alcaraz did by winning in Australia in February.

Sinner hasn’t lost since getting beat by Jakub Mensik in the Qatar Open quarterfinals more than three months ago. He's attempting to become the first Italian man to win the singles trophy in Paris since Adriano Panatta 50 years ago.

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Jannik Sinner of Italy returns to Clement Tabur of France during their first round men's singles tennis match at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Jannik Sinner of Italy, left, looks as Clement Tabur of France returns during their first round men's singles tennis match at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Jannik Sinner of Italy reacts as he plays against Clement Tabur of France during their first round men's singles tennis match at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Ballboys and ballgirls cover themselves of the sun in a shade at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Jannik Sinner of Italy celebrates after winning the first round men's singles tennis match against Clement Tabur of France at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 27, 2026--

Ahrefs, a leading marketing platform, today released its Q1 2026 AI Search Benchmark Report, a data-driven analysis of how AI platforms surface and cite brands in responses.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260526119691/en/

The report covers 13 studies, drawing insights from multiple datasets, including 146 million search result pages, 730,000 AI responses, and original experiments run by Ahrefs researchers.

In what is possibly the most notable finding, a study of 75,000 brands found that YouTube mentions correlated more strongly with AI brand visibility than any other metric. By contrast, a site's link volume and total page count showed only weak correlation.

In another study, Google's AI Overviews were shown to have reduced clicks to top-ranking content by 58%.

The report's authors used aggregated Google Search Console data across 300,000 keywords, comparing click-through rates in December 2023 (pre-AI Overviews) with those in December 2025.

Additional key findings from the report include:

“As brand discovery spreads across AI platforms that each behave differently, tracking and growing online visibility has fundamentally changed,” said Glen Allsopp, Head of Marketing Strategy & Research at Ahrefs. “I expect the teams that win will continue to follow and learn from the data, while prioritizing building genuine authority in their industry.”

The full report is available at ahrefs.com/ai-search-benchmark-q1-26

About Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a bootstrapped, profitable marketing software company with over $100 million in annual recurring revenue. It's powered by one of the largest independent web indexes (170 trillion pages) and AI visibility databases (400M monthly AI prompts). The company has continued to invest steadily in new capabilities, including AI-driven monitoring and analytics.

One of 13 studies documenting AI search in Ahrefs' new report

Ahrefs AI Search Benchmark Report