Feliciano Lopez retires against Florent Serra in the first round – French Open 2012
Seeded 15th in the draw, Spain’s Feliciano Lopez proved to be unlucky, as he was forced to withdraw from his first round match at the French Open in Paris on Monday. Lopez was trailing 0-5 against Florent Serra of France
in the opening set when he decided to forfeit the match due to injury.
Lopez had trouble even before the start of the match, as he had injured himself while practising on last Thursday.
The Spaniard failed to play to his potential, losing first five games and going down 0-5. His condition was getting worse and he decided to quit the match at that moment.
Talking to the reporters after the match, Lopez said, "In the beginning, I felt it was nothing really serious, but (the) day after, I couldn't play almost. I tried to rest during the weekend just to try to play
today, but it was impossible.''
Serra will play Lukasz Kubot of Poland in the second round. The Polish contender defeated Slovakia’s Karol Beck in straight sets 7-2, 6-2, 7-5 in the opener.
Another contest ended in a pretty similar manner, as Canada’s Frank Dancevic withdrew from his opening round match with back issue.
The Canadian was lagging behind 0-4 in the first set against Martin Klizan of Slovakia when he opted to forfeit the match.
Dancevic felt pain in his back from the beginning of the encounter, dropping opening three games to trail 0-3.
The Canadian took a medical break at that moment and after some treatment from the trainer he got back on the court. However, his condition did not improve and the right-hander made his mind to abandon the match.
He said, while giving an interview after the match,
“I was petrified out there, I didn’t know what would happen. I started feeling twinges even during the warm-up and it only got worse during the match. I didn’t want to mess up my whole summer, it was just not worth it for me. I wasn’t able to play
at 100%, I was not in it at all. I played careful, I was scared to go for anything.”
Klizan will lock horns with Nicolas Mahut of France in the round of 64. Mahut, who is famous for his longest match in the history of tennis against John Isner at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, toppled former world number one,
Andy Roddick of USA, in the first round.
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