The strain of five Grand Slam matches, including back-to-back three-hour affairs against Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic, proved to be too much for Korean sensation Hyeon Chung at the 2018 Australian Open.
His coach revealed, via New York Times’ writer Christopher Clarey, that Chung was dealing with blister issues when the tournament started, and they only got worse as he progressed through the draw to his first Grand Slam quarterfinals.
Chung’s run came to a premature ending on Friday night as he pulled the plug while trailing Roger Federer, 6-1, 5-2, sending the Swiss to his 30th Grand Slam final.
Later Chung explained that he had no other choice but to end the match prematurely.
“I think I did right thing,” Chung told reporters. “If I play bad on the court, it's not good for the fans and audience as well. I'm happy to be able to make semis in Grand Slam. I want to be stronger next year.”
Though many were surprised to learn of the severity of Chung’s injury, and the shock of his retirement from the match, Federer had knowledge of the injury beforehand.
“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.”
Chung’s coach, Neville Godwin, told Clarey that the problems actually began in the week before the Australian Open at the ASB Classic in Auckland. Chung won early matches against Tennys Sandgren and John Isner before bowing out against David Ferrer. Godwin said that because Chung hadn’t been shaving his calloused feed down, they began blistering and bruising underneath. The problems compounded in Melbourne, and three times Chung had to take pre-match injections to ease the pain in his feet.
Here’s more from Clarey: