{"id":827436,"date":"2026-05-28T08:42:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/827436\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T08:42:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:42:28","slug":"french-open-rocked-by-awful-scenes-as-kokkinakis-and-two-others-retire-world-no-2-dumped-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/827436\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open rocked by ‘awful’ scenes as Kokkinakis and two others retire, World No.2 dumped out"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was another day of drama at the French Open<\/strong><\/a> on Wednesday as Thanasi Kokkinakis<\/strong><\/a> was one of three players to retire and World No.2 Elena Rybakina suffered a shock second-round loss. Kokkinakis was forced to call it quits at the start of the third set against Spanish veteran Pablo Carreno Busta.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old Aussie suffered a recurrence of a shoulder injury that has plagued him over the last few years<\/strong><\/a>, throwing his career into major doubt. “I’m doing some scans tomorrow, I’m trying to be optimistic,\u201d he said in his post-match presser.<\/p>\n

\"Thanasi<\/p>\n

Thanasi Kokkinakis, Hailey Baptiste and Jakub Men\u0161\u00edk at the French Open.<\/p>\n

Kokkinakis showed his courage and bravery to level at 5-7 6-4 in 32 degree heat, but had to call the trainer and then retired hurt. \u201cJust struggling with the same injury,” Kokkinakis reported afterwards. “I could feel it getting worse. I kind of came into the match with a lot of doubts, because I wanted to go out there and give it a crack, but I knew it didn’t feel right. It progressively got worse with the match.”<\/p>\n

The Aussie was one of three players to retire on Wednesday, with Valentin Vacherot withdrawing due to a left foot injury. And American Hailey Baptiste had to be taken from the court in a wheelchair after suffering a serious-looking ankle injury.<\/p>\n

Baptiste cried out in pain after rolling her ankle, and laid at the back of the court in agony. \u2018The Tennis Letter\u2019 account wrote on social media: Awful scenes at Roland Garros. Life can be so cruel. Wishing Hailey a speedy recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur\u2019s third round opponent was also taken off on a wheelchair after winning a five-set epic. Jakub Mensik collapsed to the ground after beating Mariano Navone, and couldn\u2019t get back to his feet because of cramp and exhaustion.<\/p>\n

“It’s insane to play in this weather, especially in front of the sun, to be there for more than four and a half hours, it’s just insane,” he said afterwards. It presents de Minaur with a golden opportunity against an ailing opponent.<\/p>\n

World No.2 and Australian Open champ crashes out<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Rybakina became the biggest casualty of the tournament so far when she lost to Yuliia Starodubtseva in three sets. The World No.2 and Australian Open champ lost 6-3 1-6 6-7 (4-10) in a dramatic exit.<\/p>\n

It is Rybakina’s earliest exit from any tour-level tournament since the Miami Open last year and first defeat in the opening two rounds of a major since the 2024 Australian Open. “I couldn’t find the balance. I couldn’t find the right shot, and it was clearly just too many mistakes,” said the Kazakh.<\/p>\n

\"Yuliia<\/p>\n

Yuliia Starodubtseva stunned World No.2 Elena Rybakina at the French Open.<\/p>\n

(Robert Prange via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Fellow big guns Iga Swiatek, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev advanced relatively easily. It was Australia’s first winless day of the tournament, with James Duckworth and Rinky Hijikata both losing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was another day of drama at the French Open on Wednesday as Thanasi Kokkinakis was one of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":827437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[48],"tags":[38341,2766,1823,32353,245785,60560,62,1464,233007,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-827436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australian-open","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-french-open","tag-hailey-baptiste","tag-pablo-carreno-busta","tag-shoulder-injury","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-thanasi-kokkinakis","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116651318573342099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}