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Tim Henman was among a series of pundits left \u201cdisappointed\u201d by a tough afternoon at the ATP Finals that saw two stars take to the court injured. Stefanos Tsitsipas was forced to retire from his round-robin match while trailing Holger Rune 1-2. It meant that alternates Hubert Hurkacz and Taylor Fritz got to contest an exhibition set to give the fans some extra tennis but it quickly became clear that the American was playing through an injury of his own.<\/p>\n
There were multiple injury woes during Tuesday afternoon\u2019s session in Turin, with Tsitsipas having to stop his match against Rune just 17 minutes in. There had already been speculation that the Greek star was injured ahead of the tournament but he shut the rumours down following his first round-robin defeat to Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n
However, he felt something during the warm-up against Rune and had to call off the match after just three games as the crowd booed him for retiring. Under the tournament rules, with less than 50 minutes of the singles match played, the two alternates were called up to play a single set. But there were more boos when Fritz struggled to move or serve like his usual self as he played through an abdominal injury he recently picked up in Paris.<\/p>\n
Henman later argued that Tsitsipas already knew he was injured while Greg Rusedski and Mark Petchey sympathised with the crowd after the afternoon\u2019s events. \u201cIt\u2019s been complicated,\u201d former British No 1 Henman told Prime Video. \u201cObviously everyone gets very excited about that Rune-Tsitsipas match and then after three games it\u2019s done and you have sympathy for Tsitsipas, I haven\u2019t actually heard what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here to join our WhatsApp community to be the first to receive breaking and exclusive tennis news.<\/strong><\/p>\n Just in <\/strong> Wimbledon major blow as ‘tennis Disneyland’ plan for 39 courts faces rejection[LATEST] <\/strong><\/p>\n However, the 49-year-old wasn\u2019t impressed with the world No 6 for taking to the court when he suspected that Tsitsipas already knew he was hampered. Henman continued: \u201cBut to pull out after three games is massively disappointing for everyone and if it\u2019s one of those injuries where you felt like it might loosen up, it might warm up as the match went on, perhaps you\u2019re going to give it a chance. But it felt like there were a few rumours that he wasn\u2019t 100 per cent fit anyway so it\u2019s very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n As well as the let-down of Tsitsipas\u2019 match ending early, Rusedski thought that it was an extra kick in the teeth for fans to watch an ailed Fritz contest an exhibition set against Hurkacz. \u201cExtremely disappointing because on Saturday we thought he was going to pull out of the event because there was all this conversation about the elbow problem, he wasn\u2019t practising,\u201d he said of Tsitsipas.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then he showed up, he played his opening match. He actually played pretty well against Jannik Sinner considering everything and Rune and Tsitsipas is always a good match even though Rune leads the head-to-head 2-0. The first game there we thought wow, this is going to be a great match. And what disappointment for the crowd today. An injury and then the second alternate being injured as well. I mean, that\u2019s not good for the crowd, we can hear the booing in the background. And I don\u2019t blame them because if I payed a lot of money for a ticket, I would want more.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/72\/590x\/secondary\/Tsitsipas-retires-5065870.jpg?r=1699980102110\")
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