Novak Djokovic was booed as he pulled out of his Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev after losing the opening set in a tie-break.
The 37-year-old suffered a leg injury during his quarter-final against Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday and was forced to cancel practice before his semi-final.
“I did everything I possibly can to manage the muscle tear that I had,” he said, as a wait for a record-breaking 25th grand slam title goes on.
There's no way, there's NO way, THERE'S NO WAY!!! 😱
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“Medications, the strap and the physio work helped to some extent today. But towards the end of that first set I just started feeling more and more pain. It was too much to handle for me at the moment. Unfortunate ending, but I tried.
“Even if I won the first set, it was going to be a huge uphill battle for me to stay physically fit enough to stay with him in the rallies for another God knows what, two, three, four hours.
“I don’t think I had that, unfortunately, today in the tank.”
Djokovic had heavy strapping on his thigh but appeared to be moving well, but put an easy volley into the net at 5-6 to hand Zverev the set after 80 minutes.
It seemed like the contest was just getting started, but instead Djokovic headed straight to Zverev to shake hands before walking off court to a mixture of jeers and cheers.
The German, who will play in a third grand slam final as he continues to chase a first title, immediately jumped to his opponent’s defence, saying: “The very first thing I want to say is please don’t boo a player when he goes out injured.
“I know that everybody paid for tickets but Novak Djokovic is somebody that has given this sport for the past 20 years absolutely everything of his life.
“He has won this tournament with an abdominal tear, won this tournament with a hamstring tear, if he feels he can’t continue a tennis match, he can’t continue a tennis match.”
Zverev will play either top seed Jannik Sinner or Ben Shelton in Sunday’s final.
