Thanasi Kokkinakis retires injured at Roland-Garros
Thanasi Kokkinakis’ injury-plagued career appears to be at a crossroads again after retiring mid-match as Australia’s singles tally at Roland-Garros drops to four.
Kokkinakis said he abandoned a game in the third set against veteran Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta, who split the first set in two sets, 7-5 and 4-6, and decided not to serve after requesting treatment for his pectoral muscle, which was surgically repaired just minutes before.
The 30-year-old grinded through the more than hour-long set to level the fight, but there was a look of resignation on his face as he walked back to his chair and pointed his pecs towards the support set.
“I’m struggling with the same injury. I could feel the situation getting worse,” Kokkinakis said.
“I came into the game with a lot of doubts because I wanted to go out there and try but I knew it didn’t feel right. “It just got worse and worse. [during] match. I felt like something really bad was going to happen if I kept playing, so I’m going to run some scans tomorrow.
“I felt like if I kept playing I would probably leave Wimbledon, maybe even the US Open, and something bad would happen. [would] to be. I’m trying to be optimistic. I want to play slam once again. “This is my goal.”
Australia’s only singles player, James Duckworth, who competed that day, was also eliminated in the second round, losing to the 27th-ranked Spanish prodigy Rafael Jodar, 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 7-5.
In an interview with this magazine in January, Kokkinakis revealed that after last year’s Australian Open, he chose to undergo radical surgery in a desperate bid to fix a problem that had been bothering him for six years.
Melbourne surgeon Greg Hoy reattached Kokkinakis’ pectoral muscle to his right shoulder with the help of an Achilles tendon graft taken from a dead person.
“If someone advised me not to do this, I would blacklist them,” Kokkinakis said at the time.
“I was okay with retiring instead of continuing what I was doing. I couldn’t support the matches and I was losing hope. I want to lose because people beat me in tennis. If that happens, that’s fine. But if I lose, which is my strength, if I lose because I can’t serve, then I’m screwed.”
But Kokkinakis and his team were still unsure whether the operation would work, despite making a comeback last summer.
She played doubles with Nick Kyrgios in Brisbane, then played singles in her hometown of Adelaide, then withdrew ahead of her second-round match and subsequently announced she was not ready to compete at the Australian Open.
The only matches Kokkinakis played between that period and Roland-Garros were qualifying matches at the clay court Challenger tournament held in Zagreb, Croatia.
The Melbourne-based South Australian qualified for the main draw but chose not to play his first round match, but went on to play in Paris with a protected ranking and beat France’s Terence Atmane with a typically courageous four-hour, 18-minute victory of 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.
Kokkinakis achieved his best grand slam results in the French capital, reaching the third round in 2015, 2023 and 2024.
Kokkinakis, who lost a quality first set to former world number 10 Busta with a double fault, immediately broke the Spaniard’s serve at the beginning of the second set.
However, the first signs that Kokkinakis’ tournament was numbered came in the sixth game; After serving towards the T, he raised his right arm and shook it slightly before serving.
He continued to fight back, knocking down some big forehand winners as he came through to take a 4-2 lead in a long service game, then fended off two break points with two winners for 5-3 and then felt his pec again as he walked into the return position.
Kokkinakis tied the match on the fourth set point but there was no celebration and it soon became clear why.
Longtime strength and conditioning coach Jona Segal left his courtside chair to talk to Kokkinakis, who grimaced as he received a massage from the tournament physical therapist.
Kokkinakis temporarily continued the match and even picked up some tennis balls as he prepared to serve in the second game of the third set and decided to serve while walking towards the goal to withdraw the serve.
Then Duckworth, one of the sport’s warriors who has also endured numerous surgeries for various ailments, intimidated young rising star Jodar with her typically dogged performance.
Jodar had a superb clay court season, reaching the top 30 in the rankings with a series of strong performances, including reaching the semi-finals in Barcelona, the quarter-finals in Madrid (where world No.1 Jannik Sinner had to stop him) and Rome.
The 19-year-old then sent an important message to his rivals at Roland-Garros by defeating American Aleksandar Kovacevic in the first round, 6-1, 6-0, 6-4 in 94 minutes.
Duckworth showed much more resilience than Kovacevic, including winning the second set in a marathon fashion, but faltered at the end of the third and fourth sets as she threatened to send them both to a tiebreak.
His serve betrayed him in the final game of the match, double-faulting twice to lose the match and spoil the showpiece display.
Duckworth’s defeat means eighth-seeded Alex de Minaur, who lost in the second round against Alexander Blockx, is still in singles contention alongside Adam Walton, Kim Birrell and Daria Kasatkina.
De Minaur’s opponent in the 32nd round is number 26 seed Jakub Mensik, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6. [13-11] He defeated Argentinian Mariano Navone in 4 hours and 41 minutes.
It was a tournament-shaping day in Paris, with the likes of Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek and Elina Svitolina advancing, but Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina suffered a shock 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 [10-4] She was defeated by Ukrainian Yuliia Starodubtseva.
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