Hard-Luck Musetti Talks About the Injury that Forced His Retirement vs Djokovic

Lorenzo Musetti had one of those impossibly difficult press conferences on Day 11 at the Australian Open, after he had been forced to retire while holding a two-sets-to-love lead over Novak Djokovic.

The Italian, who pulled the plug after three and a half games in the third set, said that he actually started feeling the injury in the second set, but it got worse during the rest when he took the medical timeout.

“I felt it at the beginning of the second set,” the world No. 5 told reporters. “I felt there was something strange in my right leg. I continued to play, because I was playing really, really well, but I was feeling that the pain was increasing, and the problem was not going away.”

Musetti said that sitting and getting treatment was actually counterproductive in this case.

“At the end, when I took the medical time-out, to stay three minutes, I sat, and when I started to play again, I felt even more and was getting higher and higher, the level of the pain,” he said.

Musetti said it would have been no use to tape the right leg, because the injury was too high. Asked about the severity of the injury, Musetti said he didn’t have scans yet, but he was pretty sure he had some type of tear.

“Well, to tape it, it was a little bit too high, so it was impossible to tape it,” he said, adding: “I feel personally that I know my body, and I feel personally that I’m kind of secure that this is a tear, unfortunately.”

The injury—and retirement—was yet another dose of tough luck for Musetti. Last year at Roland-Garros, he won the first set against Carlos Alcaraz and was eventually forced to retire in the fourth set of their semifinal with an injury to the same leg.

In 2021, Musetti led Djokovic by two sets to love in the round of 16 at Roland-Garros, but later had to retire, trailing 4-0 in the final set.