Canadian Open hit by another huge blow as organisers left scrambling | Tennis | Sport

The Canadian Open has suffered another huge blow, as a third home player has been forced to withdraw in the middle of the tournament. Montreal native and No. 2 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime was due to face Titouan Droguet in his opening match in the primetime night session on Centre Court on Wednesday.

But hours before he was due to take the court, the Canadian called a sudden press conference and announced his withdrawal after picking up a back injury in a practice session. It left organisers scrambling to fill the top ticket night session slot.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the tournament said: “Felix Auger-Aliassime must withdraw from the OBN due to a back injury sustained during training. His opponent Titouan Droguet advances automatically to the 3rd round. The match between [Daniil] Medvedev and [Botic] van de Zandschulp will be played at 7 p.m. on the Central Court.”

Auger-Aliassime’s withdrawal comes just one day after his fellow Canadians, Denis Shapovalov and Gabriel Diallo, both had to retire in the middle of their own matches.

Second seed Auger-Aliassime was expected to play his opening match on Tuesday, but instead appeared on Wednesday’s schedule, and explained that organisers had given him extra time to try and recover.

“Well, I started having pain Monday. It was quite sudden. I was training here for two weeks, and I had zero problems. So it happens sometimes. It’s happened for me in the past,” the 25-year-old said in his sudden press conference.

“The timing is tough, right, for it to happen here. Then I was lucky to get an extra day to prepare, as I was ready to play Tuesday night. I thought that day by day things would get better, but I tried to go on court today. As some of you saw, I tried to warm up, and then I basically couldn’t serve really. So, yeah, it was impossible for me to think about even competing.”

Shapovalov, a former semi-finalist in Montreal, faced Zachary Svajda on Tuesday. The world No. 43 took an off-court medical timeout when Svajda forced a deciding set. He played on but struggled to move and told his team he was going to give it one more game before throwing in the towel.

Shapovalov stuck to his word and retired at 0-3 down in the final set, telling Svajda that his body was “done”. He later explained that he had been carrying an ankle injury since contesting the Los Cabos final over the weekend.

“I felt like other parts of my body were starting to go. I started having muscle tension and problems in my hamstring, in my quad. I started to feel my knee. So it was just a combination of things that got pretty bad from overcompensating from the ankle,” the 27-year-old said.

And Diallo was in tears when he had to call it quits in the second round on Tuesday evening. The world No. 108 called the physio early in the second set while facing 19th seed Luciano Darderi. He played on but suddenly pulled up on his leg and was quickly broken. Just as the next game got underway, Diallo crouched over and cried as he decided to retire.

“So I was dealing with a bit of pain in my left leg. Felt like it was getting just a bit worse and worse, but still extremely manageable,” he later explained. “And then called the physio at the changeover before, just to see if he could release it. And then, yeah, on the second-to-last serve, I felt something in my leg that I’ve never felt. I’m not going to go into detail.”