Adelaide native Thanasi Kokkinakis has withdrawn from his home tournament on the eve of the Australian Open after suffering another injury setback in his opening-round win.
On social media, Kokkinakis said he was “very sad to have to pull out of my favourite event” and that his arm was not “quite ready yet after missing a year off”.
Kokkinakis, who has battled through a slew of shoulder and pectoral injuries throughout his career, was treated by the trainer during his 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(7/3) win over American Sebastian Korda.
He said after the match that if it had not been his hometown tournament, not only would he have retired from the match, but he “probably wouldn’t have played to start with”.
“I had conversations with my team: I was like, ‘At what cost am I playing? Even if I get through this match, so what?'” he said.
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“I had the surgery so I could back-up matches and go through a tournament. But I’ll never really find out until I go through a long match and see where I’m at after.”
The match was Kokkinakis’s first singles match on tour in 12 months, and he was scheduled to face Monaco’s Valentin Vacherot in the second round.
Kokkinakis’s withdrawal was confirmed just a few hours before their match was scheduled to start on Wednesday evening, with Vacherot’s ticket to the quarterfinals locked in via walkover.
The shock 2025 Shanghai Masters winner will face the winner of the top-seeded Alejandro Davidovich Fokina versus Australian wildcard Rinky Hijikata.
Kokkinakis said on Monday that his injury was more in his shoulder as opposed to the pec he had surgery on last year.
“There was a lot of times [in the match] I thought about stopping, and am I going to do more damage if I keep playing?” he said after beating Korda.
“But it’s really hard to stop. Maybe for the sake of my body, it was smarter if I stop.
“But playing your home tournament, the only title I have won in singles, it makes it really hard to just be like, ‘Yeah, I think I’ll stop here.'”
ABC/AAP