In a first in the career of tennis star Stefanos Tsitsipas, he cited injury as he bowed out of his second-round match of the Paris Masters against Australian Alexei Popyrin.

The Greek who ranks Third on the ATP Tour rankings was trailing Popyrin 2-4 in the first set when he retired from the game over what appeared to be an injury to right arm.

“I haven’t retired once in my life, and it was something that I had to do today… I’m trying to be cautious for the next tournament, which is the most important one for me. I have had an issue there for quite a while now,” Tsitsipas told the ATP Tour website.

Tsitsipas is scheduled to travel to Turin, Italy to play in the Nitto ATP finals on 14 November.

“It has gotten bigger in the past couple of weeks, so I’m just trying to protect it. I felt the pain playing in the match, and I just don’t want for it to get worse than it is now. I know how to treat it, but playing every day, going out on the court practising doesn’t make it better.

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“It’s not easy to just stop, especially when you have important tournaments like this one here that I really wanted to do well. It hurts a lot not to be able to play at the level that I’m expected to play, and I’m expecting myself to play.

“I’m going to have treatment. I’m going to try and have the best people treat me and give me the best advice – anything possible to recover and be 100 per cent again.”

Over the 2021 season, Tsitsipas has won 55 and lost 18 ATP Tour matches. He has won two ATP Tour titles this year.

In March, he defeated Olympic champion Alexander Zverev at the Abierto Mexicano Telecel persentando por HSBC in Acapulco and the following month he beat Russian Andrey Rublev to win the Role Monte-Carlo Masters. In June, he reached the final of the French Open which was won by Novak Jokovic.

On Thursday, Popyrin, 22, went on to face fellow Australian James Duckworth. He lost 7-6, 6-4.

At the time of writing Duckworth, ranked 55 in the world, was set to meet Hubert Hurkacz (world number 10) in the quarter finals.