Sorana Cirstea and Dino Prizmic deliver shocking upsets at the 2026 Italian Open

Sorana Cirstea (Nuta Lucian, Wikimedia Commons)

The second week of the 2026 Italian Open is now underway. However, in the first week there were two monumental upsets that made headlines. In the second round of men’s action on Friday, world number 79 Dino Prizmic of Croatia, beat the third seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4. Then in the third round of women’s action on Saturday, the 26th seed, Sorana Cirstea of Romania, beat the world number one, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5.

Djokovic did not have a single ace in his second round loss, and was broken three times. Prizmic is only 20 years of age, and beat the second top 10 player of his career. He also upset sixth ranked Ben Shelton of the United States 6-4, 6-7, 7-6 in the second round of Madrid last month.

Prizmic followed up his win over Djokovic with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Ugo Humbert of France in the third round. He next faces Karen Khachanov of Russia in the fourth round. This will be their first ever meeting in their careers.

After losing to Prizmic, Djokovic stated he will not be competing in Geneva leading up to the French Open. He won the Geneva Open last year.

Cirstea broke Sabalenka six times. This was only Sabalenka’s third loss all year. She was beaten by Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the final of the 2026 Australian Open (6-4, 4-6, 6-4), and beaten by Hailey Baptiste of the United States in the quarterfinals of Madrid (2-6, 6-2, 7-6).

Like Prizmic, Cirstea is still in the Italian Open. She beat Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-4 in the fourth round and next plays Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. Ostapenko has won four of seven meetings all-time versus Cirstea.