French Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas exits the Paris Masters with an arm injury… is first retirement in his entire career
French Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas exited the Paris Masters as an arm injury forced him to retire from a match for the first time in his career.
The 23-year-old Greek was clearly out of sorts from the beginning of his second-round match with Australian Alexei Popyrin and was forced to quit when behind 4-2 in the first set.
Tsitsipas, ranked three in the world, said he was more concerned about ensuring he is fit for the season-ending ATP finals in Turin.
French Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas exited the Paris Masters with an arm injury
‘I haven’t retired once in my life, and it was something that I had to do today,’ Tsitsipas said at his post-match press conference.
‘Also I’m trying to be cautious for the next tournament which is the most important one for me.’
Tsitsipas refused to divulge what the exact nature of the problem was, saying ‘I prefer to keep it personal’, but said it had been an issue for a while.
US Open semi-finalist Felix Auger-Aliassime was another high-profile casualty as he slumped to a straight-sets defeat at the hands of Dominik Koepfer.
Making the most of his lucky loser status, Andy Murray’s conqueror knocked out the ninth-seeded Canadian with a 6-3 7-5 victory in one hour and 39 minutes.
‘My game level was low,’ Auger-Aliassime told atptour.com. ‘I served badly from the beginning to the end. I tried, but [it] was very low level, so I’m really disappointed.’
Koepfer will next face seventh-seeded Hubert Hurkacz after the Pole survived a first-set scare to seal a 7-5 7-6 (4) victory over American qualifier Tommy Paul.
Defending champion Daniil Medvedev was forced to work hard for his 7-5,6-4 win against Ilya Ivashka to set up a clash with American Sebastian Korda, who defeated last week’s St Petersburg champion Marin Cilic 6-2 6-4.
Last year’s finalists Alexander Zverev defeated Serbian Dusan Lajovic 6-3 7-6 (5) to reach the third round in Paris and the fourth seed will next face 16th seed Grigor Dimitrov, who eliminated 2018 champion Karen Khachanov 4-6 6-2, 6-0.
British number one Cameron Norrie boosted his hopes of qualifying for the ATP Finals with victory over Reilly Opelka.
Norrie, who dropped just three games in beating Argentina’s Federico Delbonis on Monday, overcame his big-serving opponent 6-3 6-4 in 73 minutes and faces another American, Taylor Fritz, in the last 16.
Fritz, beaten finalists in St Petersburg, beat fifth-seeded Russian Andrey Rublev 7-5 7-6 (2)
French qualifier Hugo Gaston, ranked 103rd in the world, beat Spanish 12th seed Pablo Carreno Busta 6-7 (3) 6-4 7-5 and he will play fast-rising Spanish 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz after he overcame in-form Jannik Sinner 7-6 (1) 7-5.