Novak Djokovic apparently didn’t take too kindly to being booed after he was forced to retire one set into his semifinal match at the Australian Open due to an injured left hamstring.
Djokovic posted a picture of his MRI taken of his hamstring on social media on Sunday.
“Thought I’d leave this here for all the sports injury ‘experts’ out there,” the 24-time Grand Slam champion wrote on Twitter.
Djokovic did not offer any additional information on the injury.
Alexander Zverev qualified for his first Australian Open final when Djokovic retired after the first set in Melbourne on Friday.
Djokovic, 37, clearly was struggling with a left leg injury throughout the first set, which went to a tiebreaker. When the Serbian put a volley into the net to lose the tiebreak 7-5 and the first set after 81 minutes, he immediately asked to shake Zverev’s hand and retired from the match.
It is the seventh time Djokovic has retired from a Grand Slam match, and the first time since the Round of 16 at the 2019 U.S. Open.
“I did everything I possible could to manage the muscle tear,” Djokovic said after the match. “But towards the end of the first set I just started feeling more and more pain and it was too much to handle.”
The 10-time Australian Open champion left the court to a smattering of boos from the disappointed fans in Rod Laver Arena.
“Please, don’t boo a player when he goes out with an injury,” Zverev said in his on-court interview moments later. “You gotta understand that Novak Djokovic is somebody that has given this sport for the past 20 years everything in his life.
“He has won this tournament with an abdominal tear. He has won this tournament with a hamstring tear. If he cannot continue a tennis match, it means that he cannot continue a tennis match. So, please, be respectful and really show some love towards him.”
–Field Level Media
