Francesca Jones fought back tears as she described her frustration after being forced to retire from her Australian Open first-round match with a glute muscle tear. The British player slipped and fell on court 15 while chasing her first grand slam main-draw win at the fifth attempt, and was trailing 6-2, 3-2 against Polish qualifier Linda Klimovicova when she conceded.
Jones, who sits at a career-high ranking of 69 after the best season of her life, said she was torn between fighting on and protecting her body given her injury history. "I'm at a career high," she said. "I'm probably in the main draws of the Masters, and then you are thinking: 'Should I continue, do I fight because it's a slam?' There's money, there's points on the line. Equally with my history, it's probably not the smartest thing to keep pushing. I'm just having that internal debate."
The second day in Melbourne was marked by a series of retirements as several players struggled physically. Men's seventh seed Félix Auger-Aliassime, one of the most in-form players on tour, retired with cramp against Portugal's Nuno Borges while trailing 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. Canadian Marina Stakusic also collapsed with severe cramps in both legs during her match against local wildcard Priscilla Hon, needing a wheelchair to leave the court; Hon helped her off.
Conditions were not extreme, with temperatures reaching 29C and the tournament's heat-stress scale peaking at 1.9 out of 5. Auger-Aliassime, a quarter-finalist in 2022 and coming off a US Open semi-final, said he had no answers for his physical breakdown. "I just knew it wasn't heading in the right direction," he said. "I don't want to be just standing there like a punching bag."
Jones has ectrodactyly ectodermal dysplasia, a rare genetic syndrome that has left her with three fingers and a thumb on each hand, as well as other physical issues. She said she does not relate her retirements directly to the condition but rather to not having had the right team and expertise earlier in her career. "I don't relate to any of the retirements directly to what could be referred to as 'kid with a syndrome'," she said. "I don't think I had a team in place and the expertise that I needed from a younger age." Despite the pain and tears, Jones remained resolute. "It hurts a lot," she said. "But if I was someone that didn't know how to pick myself up quickly, [I] would be effed." She has now retired in three of her five main-draw and qualifying matches at the Australian Open.
