Over the past month and a half, only Rafael Nadal had played better claycourt tennis than Novak Djokovic. On a stunning Saturday afternoon in Paris, the Serbian superstar wasn’t as good as a 29th-seeded floater from Germany. As a result, the French Open has been turned upside-down… and a prolonged stretch of steady play no longer matters all that much for the man who wanted to rewrite history at Roland Garros.

When the year’s claycourt Grand Slam began on May 24, the odds-on favorite to oppose Nadal in the men’s singles final was Djokovic, the fourth seed in the tournament but the second-best performer on the terre battue of Europe. While Roger Federer slipped and struggled, Djokovic powered his way to the finals in both Monte Carlo and Rome, before engaging Nadal in an epic four-hour semifinal in Madrid. The 21-year-old from Belgrade never won a tournament, but he did just about everything else. Federer might have defeated Rafa in the Madrid final, but it was quite fair to say that the Swiss wouldn’t have prevailed against his foremost nemesis if Djokovic hadn’t weakened Nadal the day before. A semifinalist in Paris last year, Djokovic represented the best bet to prevent his Spanish rival from winning a fifth straight Coupe de Mousquetaires, the trophy given to the French Open men’s singles champion.

Now, all bets are off, after a titanic upset no one saw coming.

Djokovic–who stumbled out of the second round of last year’s Wimbledon–couldn’t survive the first full week at Roland Garros. The world No. 4 fell, and fell hard, in the third round to Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber in straight sets.  The 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 loss, in 2 hours and 21 minutes, will do a lot more than prevent Djokovic from catching No. 3 Andy Murray in the ATP Tour rankings; the massive letdown will prevent Djokovic from making his first French Open final, in a year when the Serb was fortunate to see Rafa on the other half of the draw.

How did this Kohlschreiber conquest take place on Court 1 of Paris’s largest tennis complex? Very simply, the German–ranked 32nd but seeded three slots higher–displayed the crunch-time courage that has been lacking in the other mid-level players on tour.

One of the main themes of week one at Roland Garros–at least with respect to the men’s tournament–is that the big dogs have pushed past formidable but ultimately inferior opposition because of a significant surplus of mental toughness. Federer–who advanced to the fourth round on Saturday with a win over a gallant Paul-Henri Mathieu–survived a second-round scare earlier in the week because his talented opponent, Jose Acasuso, couldn’t hold a 5-1 third set lead. Third-seeded Andy Murray escaped a difficult second-round match as well, largely due to the fact that his opposite number, Potito Starace, couldn’t hold a 5-2 third-set lead in an even match. Federer and Murray are world-class performers, but the two top 5 titans have moved forward in Paris partly because their opponents lacked the composure needed to close down sets. This aspect of elite-level competition factored into Kohlschreiber’s supreme surprise, which will reverberate through the locker rooms of both the men’s and women’s tours.

Kohlschreiber, it must be said, wasn’t spectacular on Saturday. The German–who shows flashes of brilliance but has never been able to reach a Grand Slam semifinal–hit 24 winners while committing 22 unforced errors, and notched only one ace against Djokovic. However, whenever things got tight on Court 1, this off-the-radar figure became infused with the fortitude and resilience of a champion. Djokovic would be the one left in the dust, forced to sing the typical lament of the pretenders he usually dismisses at this stage of a slam.

In the first set, Djokovic grabbed a 4-1 lead and appeared to be well on his way to victory. Kohlschreiber–like the Acasusos and Staraces who exit slams in week one of competition–would normally fold the tent, but the 29th seed instead responded by winning the next five games. In set two, Kohlschreiber was on the verge of collapsing in a manner similar to Acasuso and Starace. The German, once up 5-2 and 40-love (on serve) in the set, lost three set points, was broken for 5-3, and then saw Djokovic hold for 5-4. Kohlschreiber might have been leading by a set and a break, but everyone in the stadium–his Serbian foe very much included–knew that if he couldn’t slam the door shut at 5-4, the trajectory of the match would become very different.

Sure enough, Kohlschreiber steadied his wobbly nerves to snag a two-set lead. Once he defeated his demons, Djokovic no longer seemed to be a particularly imposing adversary. Kohlschreiber coasted to 4-all, and then pounced on a break chance to take a 5-4 lead. Having been in such a position just one set earlier, the underdog didn’t flinch, and when a crisp crosscourt backhand overwhelmed Djokovic on match point, the deed had been done. For at least one day, Philipp Kohlschreiber would not succumb to the cranial frailty that has bedeviled players gifted with similar talents and tools. This time, a player ranked outside the top 30–normally a function of the mind more than tennis technique–acted the part of a top 5 player.

Novak Djokovic wishes that such a transformation could have occurred against somebody else.

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