The Canadian Open has suffered another major setback as home favourite Felix Auger-Aliassime withdrew from the tournament on Wednesday due to a back injury sustained during training.
Sudden withdrawal before night match
The Montreal native and No. 2 seed was scheduled to face Titouan Droguet in the primetime night session on Centre Court. However, hours before the match, Auger-Aliassime called a sudden press conference to announce his withdrawal, leaving organisers scrambling to fill the top ticket slot.
In a statement, the tournament confirmed: “Felix Auger-Aliassime must withdraw from the OBN due to a back injury sustained during training. His opponent Titouan Droguet advances automatically to the 3rd round. The match between [Daniil] Medvedev and [Botic] van de Zandschulp will be played at 7 p.m. on the Central Court.”
Third Canadian to withdraw
Auger-Aliassime's withdrawal comes just one day after fellow Canadians Denis Shapovalov and Gabriel Diallo both had to retire in the middle of their first-round matches.
The 25-year-old was originally expected to play his opening match on Tuesday, but organisers gave him extra time to recover. In his press conference, he explained: “Well, I started having pain Monday. It was quite sudden. I was training here for two weeks, and I had zero problems. So it happens sometimes. It's happened for me in the past.”
He added: “The timing is tough, right, for it to happen here. Then I was lucky to get an extra day to prepare, as I was ready to play Tuesday night. I thought that day by day things would get better, but I tried to go on court today. As some of you saw, I tried to warm up, and then I basically couldn't serve really. So, yeah, it was impossible for me to think about even competing.”
