Most of the drama yesterday at Wimbledon centered on match play, be it Felix Auger-Aliassime’s five-setter against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or Naomi Osaka’s straight-set takedown of Aryna Sabalenka.
Then there was Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, who retired due to injury, down 2-4 in the fifth set against Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff, after a series of visits from the physio and more than one medical timeout.
Hurkacz, 29, had already been seen by a trainer, who appeared to be working on the right side of his torso, by the time the pair got to 5-5 in the fourth set with Hurkacz holding a 2-1 set lead.
But with Struff serving to close out the game, Hurkacz tossed his racket aside and told the chair umpire he needed a medical timeout. The 29-year-old had been clutching at a spot near his right oblique and even doubled over, clearly struggling, after forcing deuce.
Hurkacz left the court for treatment, returned and was broken straight away in the next game, sending things to a fifth set.
At that point, Hurkacz told the chair umpire, Julie Kjendlie, it was too dark, and he could not see, despite Wimbledon’s 9 p.m. BST darkness curfew for outer courts being more than an hour away. He then immediately said he needed to leave the court to change his clothes. When Kjendlie told him he’d already taken his two allotted bathroom breaks, he told her he needed to change his underwear, “and also, it’s too dark.”
Clearly struggling to move, Hurkacz called the trainer twice more in the fifth set before finally retiring.
