Felix Auger-Aliassime was unable to explain why he suffered with cramping as the seventh seed was forced to retire from his first-round match against Nuno Borges at the Australian Open.
The Canadian, who returned to the world’s top-10 after a comeback year and reaching the US Open semi-finals last season, retired while trailing 3-6 6-4 6-4 to Portugal’s Nuno Borges.
The 25-year-old said: “I want to be on the court competing with my opponent. I don’t want to be just standing there, you know, like a punching bag. So there’s no point.”
Auger-Aliassime said he started to cramp at the start of the third set but admitted he couldn’t remember struggling physically so early into his first match at a tournament.
“I don’t have all the answers now,” Auger-Aliassime said. “I’m 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.
“It hurts even more, because you know, if I wasn’t really ready or I wasn’t doing everything, then you have to be honest with yourself. But even with being honest with myself, I’m not totally finding the reasons why this is happening. It wasn’t happening in the past, so I’ll have to figure it out.”
Auger-Aliassime is so far the highest seed to fall at the Australian Open while the Portuguese Borges will play Australia’s Jordan Thompson in the second round.
