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Novak Djokovic apologised to the crowd after retiring from his Six Kings Slam third-place match against Taylor Fritz due to an injury.
The 38-year-old lost a physical, 75-minute first set against Fritz and shook hands with the American after he won the tiebreak 7-4.
Djokovic appeared to pull up with a left leg injury during the match and decided he could not continue playing in slow conditions.
The 24-time grand slam champion lost in straight sets to Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals on Thursday before he retired on Saturday.
“Not great, I want to apologise to everybody,” Djokovic said as he spoke to the crowd before leaving the court. “Sorry guys. Sorry you couldn’t see the second set. It was one of the longest sets I’ve played.
“Credit to Taylor. We had some incredible games towards the end of that set, and it’s one of the longest sets I’ve ever played, to be honest.
“It was an amazing visit to Riyadh for me once again. I want to thank everybody for really welcoming me. Hopefully if I keep on going next year, I’ll be back if you guys want me here.”
Djokovic is signed up to play in the ATP 250 tournament in Athens, and on Saturday become the third player to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin, which will be played in November
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Djokovic, who has qualified for next month’s ATP Finals, apologised to the crowd (REUTERS)
Djokovic equalled Roger Federer’s record by qualifying for the year-end finals for the 18th time, but he took the decision to withdraw from the tournament last year.
“Now it’s rest and really addressing some of the issues I have with my body,” Djokovic said. “Then hopefully playing the last couple of tournaments of the season, let’s see.”
Fritz saved set points against Djokovic on his way to winning the opening set against the 24-time grand slam champion, who he had not beaten in 11 previous attempts.
“That was really physical,” Fritz said. “You get into those really long games and the balls start to just wear out and get so huge to the point where it’s so hard to get a free point on the serve, hit a winner.
“Playing the long points, playing the long games, makes everything just slower, longer. It was such a tough set and at the end of it, like I said, conditions just got so slow. We’re just playing long rallies, back to back to back, just having to fight for every point, so it was brutal.”