Morning injury forces Griekspoor to retire, sends Zverev into Roland-Garros quarter-finals

Alexander Zverev, the No 3 seed, moved into the quarter-finals of Roland-Garros when Tallon Griekspoor retired with injury.

The Dutchman had led the third seed 3-0 in the first set before Zverev staged an impressive comeback to flip the script and sprint to a 6-4 opening-set win.

Griekspoor quickly moved a break down in the second before it became clear that physical issues meant he could not continue, with Zverev gaining safe passage into the quarter-finals for the fifth consecutive year.

“This morning and in the warmup with the last couple of serves that I hit, I pulled my abdominal, which, yeah, made me from not serving full and not being able to compete the way I would like”, the Dutch said.

“Abdominal injury is the first time for me, he added. “I’ve pulled some muscles before in my body, so I know the feeling. Like I said, last couple of serves from the warmup I felt it, and I tried everything in the meantime. Made a scan before the match, which showed nothing yet, but that’s probably because it’s too quick after it happened. They say it needs a couple of hours to show something.”

“Felt actually okay in the first set even though I didn’t serve harder than 180 and went all the way down to 150 at some point. So, yeah, of course, tried to go out there. Probably one of the biggest matches of my life against an opponent that I like to play on a beautiful court. So I just want to give it a shot, but yeah, realized pretty early that it was not going to be my day.”

Zverev, ranked No 3, led 6-4, 3-0 when Griekspoor, ranked No 35, pulled out at Roland-Garros in Paris on Monday afternoon.

The German will play the winner of the match between Cameron Norrie and Serb Novak Djokovic, the No 6 seed, next.

The Dutchman played for his first ever Grand Slam quarter-final. He had beaten American Marcos Giron (4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5), Canadian Gabriel Diallo (7-5, 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-3) and American qualifier Ethan Quinn (4-6, 6-1, 6-7 (2), 6-1, 6-4) during the first week.

Paris (Grand Slam), other last-16 results (Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 56.352.000, most recent results first):

• Jannik Sinner vs. Andrey Rublev
• Alexander Bublik vs. Jack Draper
• Cameron Norrie vs. Novak Djokovic
• Lorenzo Musetti (8) beat Holger Rune (10): 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2
• Frances Tiafoe (15) beat Daniel Altmaier: 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (4)
• Carlos Alcaraz (2) beat Ben Shelton (13): 7-6 (8), 6-3, 4-6, 6-4
• Tommy Paul (12) beat Alexei Popyrin (25): 6-3, 6-3, 6-3