Australia’s Roland-Garros singles presence has shrunk to four as Thanasi Kokkinakis’ injury-riddled career again looks to be at the crossroads after he retired mid-match.
Kokkinakis called it quits one game into the third set against Spanish veteran Pablo Carreno Busta – after they split the opening two sets, 7-5, 4-6 – deciding not to serve after seeking treatment on his surgically repaired pectoral muscle only minutes earlier.
The 30-year-old gritted out an hour-plus second set to level the contest, but there was a look of resignation on his face as he walked to his chair and gestured at his pectoral muscle towards his support team.
“I’m just struggling with the same injury. I could feel it getting worse,” Kokkinakis said.
“I came into the match with a lot of doubts because I wanted to go out there and give it a crack, but I knew it didn’t feel right. It progressively got worse [during] the match. I felt like if I kept playing, something bad was really going to happen, so I’ll do some scans tomorrow.
“I felt if I kept playing, that’s me probably out of Wimbledon, as well, and maybe even US Open, and something bad [would] happen. I’m trying to be optimistic. I just want to play the slams one more time. That’s my goal.”
Australia’s only other singles player in action on the day, James Duckworth, also exited in the second round, going down 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 7-5 to 27th-seeded Spanish prodigy Rafael Jodar in a competitive encounter.
Kokkinakis revealed in an interview with this masthead in January how he opted to undergo radical surgery following last year’s Australian Open in a desperate bid to fix a problem that had plagued him for six years.
Melbourne surgeon Greg Hoy reattached Kokkinakis’ pectoral muscle to his right shoulder with the help of an Achilles tendon graft from a dead person.
“If someone recommended me not to do it, I just blacklisted them,” Kokkinakis said at the time.
“I was fine with retiring rather than keeping on doing what I was doing. I couldn’t back up matches, and was losing hope. I want to lose because people beat me at tennis. If that happens, fine. But if I lose because I can’t serve, which is my strength, then I’m cooked.”
However, Kokkinakis and his team were still unsure whether the operation would work, even as he made his comeback this past summer.
He started with doubles alongside Nick Kyrgios in Brisbane then played singles in his home city of Adelaide before withdrawing ahead of his second-round match, then announcing he was not ready to compete at the Australian Open.
The only matches Kokkinakis played between then and Roland-Garros were in qualifying at a claycourt Challenger tournament in Zagreb, Croatia.
The Melbourne-based South Australian qualified for the main draw, but chose not to play his first-round match, yet pushed on to play with a protected ranking in Paris, where he beat Frenchman Terence Atmane 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in a typically gutsy four-hour, 18-minute victory.
Kokkinakis has enjoyed his best grand slam results in the French capital, reaching the third round in 2015, 2023 and 2024.
After losing a high-quality first set to former world No.10 Busta with a double fault, Kokkinakis instantly broke the Spaniard’s serve at the start of the second.
But the first outward signs that Kokkinakis’ tournament was numbered came in the sixth game, when after thundering a serve down the T, he raised his right arm and gave it a shake, having gently rotated it pre-serve.
He continued to fight, clobbering some big forehand winners as he came through a lengthy service game to push 4-2 ahead, then staved off two break points with two more winners for 5-3, after which he felt his pectoral muscle again while walking to his return position.
Kokkinakis levelled the match on his fourth set point, but there was no celebration – and it soon became obvious why.
His long-time strength-and-conditioning coach, Jona Segal, left his courtside chair to head to the other side of the court to speak with Kokkinakis as he grimaced while receiving a massage from the tournament physiotherapist.
Kokkinakis temporarily continued the match, and even collected some tennis balls as he prepared to serve in the second game of the third set before deciding against it as he trudged to the net to retire.
Later, Duckworth – one of the warriors of the sport, who has also endured numerous surgeries for various ailments – gave teenage rising star Jodar a fright with a typically dogged performance.
Jodar has enjoyed a brilliant claycourt season, climbing inside the top 30 in the rankings with a series of strong performances, including reaching the semi-finals in Barcelona, and quarter-finals in Madrid – where it took world No.1 Jannik Sinner to stop him – and Rome.
The 19-year-old then sent a major statement to his rivals at Roland-Garros with a 6-1, 6-0, 6-4 first-round dispatching of American Aleksandar Kovacevic in 94 minutes.
Duckworth provided much more resistance than Kovacevic, including winning a marathon second set, but he tripped up at the end of the third and fourth sets just as he threatened to send both of those to tiebreakers as well.
His serve betrayed him in what was the final game of the match, double-faulting twice to lose the match and spoil an otherwise gallant display.
Duckworth’s defeat means only eighth-seeded Alex de Minaur – who received a second-round walkover against Alexander Blockx – Adam Walton, Kim Birrell and Daria Kasatkina are still in singles contention.
De Minaur’s round-of-32 opponent is No.26 seed Jakub Mensik, a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 [13-11] victor over Argentine Mariano Navone in four hours and 41 minutes.
It was a tournament-shaping day in Paris, with the likes of Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek and Elina Svitolina advancing, but Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina suffered a shock 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 [10-4] loss to Ukraine’s Yuliia Starodubtseva.
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