Medvedev: ‘I Felt A Strange Pop In My Adductor’

Daniil Medvedev admitted that he was not willing to take any risks after he was forced to retire from his semi-final match against Novak Djokovic on Saturday at the Astana Open.

With the scores level at 4-6, 7-6(6), the second seed walked to the net and brought an end to proceedings after he pulled a muscle in his leg during the dramatic second-set tie-break.

“It’s the second time in my life I retired like this with a pulled muscle,” Medvedev explained later. “So here, on the second point of the tie-break, I felt a little bit [of a] strange pop in my adductor. I first thought maybe it is cramp and after the point I was like, `No, probably not a cramp.’

“And during the tie-break, I felt I can play like five, 10 more points but that’s it. If I play one more set, you can do it, but you can probably miss half a year instead of one month.”

Medvedev was aiming to win his second tour-level title of the season this week at the ATP 500 event in Astana after triumphing in Los Cabos in July. The 26-year-old had not dropped a set en route to the semi-final clash against Djokovic and looked strong against the Serbian in their 11th ATP Head2Head meeting before he was forced to retire.

“I actually have no idea what is fair,” Medvedev said when discussing his decision to retire. “If I won, I would not play the final. I was like, ‘OK, I just try to hit some shots’. If I manage to win, well I cannot do anything, I will retire. If I lose, congrats to Novak, he’s still in great shape. Good luck to him in the final.”

Djokovic will seek his 90th tour-level title when he faces Stefanos Tsitsipas in the championship match in Astana on Sunday.