{"id":417482,"date":"2026-01-19T22:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/417482\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:14:08","slug":"i-dont-want-to-be-a-punching-bag-retirements-mar-dramatic-day-at-australian-open-australian-open-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/417482\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I don\u2019t want to be a punching bag\u2019 \u2013 retirements mar dramatic day at Australian Open | Australian Open 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019ve honestly got no bloody clue what happened after that point in the match,\u201d Francesca Jones said as she fought back tears. Jones had been battling hard on court 15 at Melbourne Park, chasing her first grand slam main-draw win at the fifth attempt, when she slipped and fell. She instantly felt a tear in her glute muscle. Jones soon had no choice but to retire from her Australian Open<\/a> first-round match while trailing 6-2, 3-2 against Linda Klimovicova, a 21-year-old Polish qualifier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m at a career high,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI\u2019m probably in the main draws of the Masters, and then you are thinking: \u2018Should I continue, do I fight because it\u2019s a slam?\u2019 There\u2019s money, there\u2019s points on the line. Equally with my history, it\u2019s probably not the smartest thing to keep pushing. I\u2019m just having that internal debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

A dramatic second day in Melbourne underlined the physical challenges of competing at the highest level as numerous players retired from their first-round matches because of injuries. F\u00e9lix Auger\u2011Aliassime, the men\u2019s seventh seed and one of the most in-form players in the world<\/a>, bowed out meekly in his opening match against Nuno Borges of Portugal, retiring with cramp on John Cain Arena while trailing 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.<\/p>\n

It was a similarly miserable day for Auger-Aliassime\u2019s compatriot Marina Stakusic, a talented 21-year-old player from Canada. Stakusic began to experience severe cramps in both legs in her match against the local wildcard Priscilla Hon and, while trailing 1-6, 6-4, 5-3, she collapsed. Aided by Hon, Stakusic left the court in a wheelchair. Conditions were hardly extreme, the forecast reading 29C (84.2F) with 29% humidity. The Australian Open heat\u2011stress scale peaked at 1.9 out of 5, signalling temperate playing conditions.<\/p>\n

Auger-Aliassime had arrived playing some of the best tennis of his career, rising into the top five. A quarter-finalist in 2022, he had hopes of following up his US Open semi-final appearance with another deep run before his tournament quickly unravelled. \u201cI just knew it wasn\u2019t heading in the right direction,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t like to be on the court that way. I want to be on the court winning. I want to be on the court competing with my opponent. I don\u2019t want to be just standing there like a punching bag.\u201d<\/p>\n

F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime was at a loss to find a reason for his body letting him down after the first set in Melbourne. Photograph: Fred Lee\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

This defeat was particularly painful for Auger-Aliassime because he felt he had prepared well and everything was in place before the first grand slam tournament of the year. Now he has to figure out why his body let him down. \u201cI don\u2019t have all the answers now,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to be very professional at everything I do, prepare well. I love this sport, and I love to play. So I try to do everything I can in my control to get ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hurts even more, because if I was self-aware and I was, like, \u2018Well, I wasn\u2019t really ready or I wasn\u2019t doing everything,\u2019 then you have to be honest with yourself. But even with being honest with myself, I\u2019m not totally finding the reasons why this is happening. It wasn\u2019t happening in the past, so I\u2019ll have to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019s circumstances, meanwhile, are unique<\/a>. She has ectrodactyly ectodermal dysplasia, a rare genetic syndrome that has resulted in her having three fingers and a thumb on each hand along with several other physical issues. Jones has struggled badly with injuries throughout her career but she insists they are not a direct consequence of her condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t relate to any of the retirements directly to what could be referred to as \u2018kid with a syndrome\u2019. I don\u2019t relate to any of that. I think what I relate it to \u2026 is that I don\u2019t think I had a team in place and the expertise that I needed from a younger age. So my age might say 25, but my physical journey, I\u2019m still quite early in. I think that\u2019s where my tennis level is so much higher than my physical journey, and I\u2019m trying to match those up every year and every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones, who sits at a career high ranking of No 69 after the best season of her life, has now retired in three of her five main draw and qualifying matches at the Australian Open. Through frustration and tears she was resolute. \u201cIt hurts a lot,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if I was someone that didn\u2019t know how to pick myself up quickly, [I] would be effed. I don\u2019t know what the better way to say that is; I\u2019d have no capacity to be where I am right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve honestly got no bloody clue what happened after that point in the match,\u201d Francesca Jones said as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-417482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}