It is not often that a player turns up to their match in a Grand Slam to find out their opponent is somebody else but that is what happened on the second day of the French Open.
Italy’s Gianluca Mager took to the court for his first round match which was meant to be against John Millman. Confusion started to rise when he was left standing on the court for several minutes with no opponent in sight. Then when his rival did appear it wasn’t Millman but German lucky loser Peter Gojowczyk.
The Australian world No.43 has been forced to pull out of the draw at the last-minute due to a back injury which he has failed to fully recover from. Millman says he suffered his injury during a hitting session with Alex de Minaur and it is an issue which he has never suffered from before. It is the first time he hasn’t played in a French Open main draw since 2015.
“I injured my back two days ago in a hit, gave it every chance to be right, warmed up this morning but it wasn’t good enough to take to the court,” the Australian Associated Press quoted Millman as saying of his injury.
“I’ve always battled with my lower back but this is a new injury, an acute injury which happened when I was hitting with Alex de Minaur and I know when it happened.
“I was really targetting this tournament. I’d extended training and tournament play on the clay and was more prepared this time than any other time coming into Roland Garros.”
Roland Garros has not been a place of fond memories for the 31-year-old who won his maiden ATP title last year in Kazakhstan. He is yet to win a main draw match at the tournament after suffering five consecutive first round defeats.
“It’s incredibly disappointing. I’m getting older now and I know I don’t have a whole lot of these ones left,” Millman continued.
“I’ve played a lot of matches in my career when I’ve been injured, torn things, and played through it, so I wanted to give myself every chance.
“But I was told that if I played today, I could make it a lot worse than what it was and therefore a lot longer time out on the sidelines.
“I got the medical experts – the ATP physios, the leading French osteopath here and the doctors – and I was headily medicated so I gave myself every opportunity. But I didn’t feel I could go on court and compete.”
After Millman’s withdrawal there are five Australian men in the French Open main draw this year. They are De Minaur, Chris O’connell, Jordan Thompson, Alexei Popyrin and James Duckworth.
