Brit Cameron Norrie retires mid-match for first time ever as French Open hopes wrecked | Tennis | Sport

British No. 1 Cameron Norrie has retired in the middle of his first-round match at the French Open. The No. 20 seed lost a very close first-set tiebreak to Adolfo Daniel Vallejo despite leading 5-1, and then got broken to start the second set. He called the trainer and played on, but threw in the towel a game later, allowing Vallejo to advance 7-6(7) 2-0. This is Vallejo’s first Grand Slam main draw win.

This is the first time that Norrie has ever retired from a match on the professional circuit in his entire career. His only other retirement came at a Futures event in 2014.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the tournament on Saturday, the world No. 24 revealed he was carrying a rib injury and had yet to practice at Stade Roland-Garros. Norrie also said he should have retired from his opening match in Geneva last week, which saw him lose 6-4 6-4 to Mariano Navone just six days ago.

The Brit also said he had played a five-set practice match with top-10 star Ben Shelton at the Monte-Carlo Country Club on May 10, which lasted just shy of five hours. With hindsight, he admitted he may have overprepared.

“I played best-of-five with Ben Shelton. We play close to five hours. So it was so good, so fun. But maybe I, in hindsight now, maybe overtrained and overprepared and loving my tennis too much, maybe could have rested a few more days, and I maybe went to Geneva a bit early. So, all hindsight, but yeah, it’s frustrating,” Norrie said ahead of the French Open.

The 30-year-old did manage to get on the practice court ahead of his opening match, and made the first set competitive. But he blew four set points and was seen talking to his team a lot early in the second set, before deciding to call it quits.

Norrie is now in a race against time to recover for the grass season, with the ATP 500 event at Queen’s kicking off on June 15. He has just over a month to be ready for Wimbledon, which begins on June 29. Retired British star Laura Robson told TNT Sports that Norrie likely wouldn’t have wanted to risk a long layoff.

“He’s been playing the last week and a half with a rib injury. We were hopeful that things were going to improve. We heard he played a few tiebreaks yesterday and practised the day before with his coach. You can just see him there, shaking his head,” she said.

“Really unfortunate. He was in such good form coming into the tournament and really enjoying his tennis. That’s just really difficult. It’s one of those injuries you can’t play through and you get the feeling if it’s going to get worse, you’re putting the rest of your season at risk. He does look pretty upset.”

Billie Jean King Cup captain Anne Keothavong replied: “It’s sad. You never want to see a player go out of a tournament like this, especially at a Grand Slam. Go back 12 months ago this tournament felt like a real turning point. He was able to go through to the fourth round and his ranking was moving back in the right direction. Today was probably too much too soon.

“That rib injury of his, he’s been trying to manage for the past week and a half. We thought maybe it would settle down but it’s an awkward injury for any tennis player to deal with. He’s someone who can tolerate and deal with a lot of pain. He’s not one to retire from matches. Hopefully taking a long term view and he’ll come back stronger for the grasscourt season. You just have to give it time. It requires an MRI scan because it really varies in severity.”

Norrie now looks set to drop down the rankings, having reached the fourth round here a year ago. But former world No. 4 Johanna Konta explained why the rib issue would have bothered him so much. “This is not the situation you want to find yourself in as a player. It’s one of those injuries that can affect other areas and things can go wrong in other places because as soon as you start compensating, you can’t breathe properly or move properly, it’s more likely you’ll pull something else. There’s a knock-on effect. I really feel for him and you can see he’s just gutted,” she said.

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