Injured Kyrgios pulls out of Wimbledon opener
Australia’s Nick Kyrgios walks through Wimbledon tennis club wearing a newly released Tottenham Hotspur T-Shirt in southwest London on July 1, 2017, prior to the start of the tennis tournament on July 3. (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS / AFP)
LONDON, United Kingdom — Nick Kyrgios suffered more injury woe as the Australian was forced to retire from his Wimbledon first round match against Pierre-Hugues Herbert on Monday.
Kyrgios admitted last week he would go into Wimbledon only “60-65 percent” fit as he struggled to recover from the left hip injury that forced him to pull out of Queen’s Club last month.
The 22-year-old had reached at least the fourth round in all three of his previous Wimbledon appearances.
But after losing in the second round at both the Australian and French Opens this year, Kyrgios’s miserable 2017 continued as the world number 20 lost the first two sets 6-3, 6-4 against Herbert before deciding to call it quits due to the nagging injury.
Herbert will face France’s Benoit Paire or Brazilian Rogerio Dutra Silva in the second round.
From the moment he stepped onto Court Three wearing long white leggings under his shorts, Kyrgios didn’t look comfortable and he spent most of the first set trying to flex and stretch his leg.
A Kyrgios double fault in the eighth game gave Herbert the break that gifted him the opening set.
Kyrgios, then ranked 144th, burst onto the scene at Wimbledon in 2014 when he defeated then world number one Rafael Nadal en route to the quarter-finals.
With the injury impeding his movement, there was no sign of that brilliance against Herbert and when the 70th-ranked Frenchman took the second set, Kyrgios called for treatment.
He spent several minutes speaking to the doctor before telling Herbert he was going to have to retire.
