Hyeon Chung pulled the plug on his inspired Australian Open run because he couldn't walk anymore.
Badly blistered feed prompted the 21-year-old Korean to retire from his first Australian Open semifinal while trailing reigning champion Roger Federer, 1-6, 2-5.
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Chung's agent, Stuart Duguid, told the media multiple blisters built up over the past week of play left his feet raw.
"It's like worse than regular blisters," Duguid said. "Over the last few days, it was blister under blister under blister. He had it shaved off. Now it's red raw. They tried injections to see if it numbed the pain. It didn't work. Much worse than a regular blister."
The 58th-ranked Chung said blisters basically immobilized him.
"I really hurt. I can't walk no more," Chung said.
Federer said he was aware of Chung's blister problems before the semifinal started.
"I knew he was having issues with his feet going into it," Federer said. "But I knew he also had issues going into the match against Novak. He handled that very well. The same against Sandgren.
For me, I was trying to block that away and just play Chung himself. If he had no issues, well, that's normal. If he has issues, well, bad luck for him, and I'll take advantage of it."
The 19-time Grand Slam champion dominated on serve winning 15 of 16 first-serve points and hitting nine aces in 62 minutes of work.
"I played the first set without feeling him having really that many issues, to be quite honest," Federer said. "I was also very focused on my own game. In the beginning, I was trying to keep the points short. If I had to extend the rallies because he was doing a nice job of staying in them, you know, we'll have some tougher rallies early on. I thought that was not a bad thing for me either.
"Then just trying to mix it up a little bit. I think you saw that with some short slices, making him come in, me trying to serve and volley. I didn't serve and volley as much as I needed to, but that was always an option I could have played and used. As I realized that he was struggling, there was no need for me to push the envelope too much and take chances moving forward if I knew it was enough to be playing from the baseline against him."
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve