Tsitsipas: 'It's Not Easy To Just Stop'

For the first time in his career on Wednesday, Stefanos Tsitsipas made the difficult decision to retire from a match. The Greek star later explained at the Rolex Paris Masters that his injury has been a long-standing issue.

Retiring with what appeared to be a right-arm injury at 2-4 down in the first set against Australia’s Alexei Popyrin, Tsitsipas admitted: “I haven't retired once in my life, and it was something that I had to do today… I'm trying to be cautious for the next tournament, which is the most important one for me. I have had an issue there for quite a while now.

“It has gotten bigger in the past couple of weeks, so I'm just trying to protect it. I felt the pain playing in the match, and I just don't want for it to get worse than it is now.”

Tsitsipas, who is next expected to play at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin from 14-21 November, added, “I know how to treat it, but playing every day, going out on the court practising doesn't make it better.

“It's not easy to just stop, especially when you have important tournaments like this one here that I really wanted to do well [in]. It hurts a lot not to be able to play at the level that I'm expected to play, and I'm expecting myself to play.

“I'm going to have treatment. I'm going to try and have the best people treat me and give me the best advice – anything possible to recover and be 100 per cent again.”

The 23-year-old Tsitsipas has compiled a 55-18 match record on the 2021 season and won two ATP Tour titles at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters (d. Rublev) and at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC in Acapulco (d. Zverev). He was also runner-up at Roland Garros (l. to Djokovic).