Former American men’s tennis great Andre Agassi has disclosed that he was stunned by Matteo Arnaldi’s decision to withdraw from the French Open.
Recall that Amaldi was billed to face fellow Italian Flavio Cobolli in the semi-final, for a chance to meet Alexander Zverev in the final at Roland Garros before he announced his withdrawal from the competition.
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Reacting to the development, Agassi stated that he couldn’t believe the news of Arnaldi withdrawing from the Roland-Garros Semi-finals.
“I could have beat Arnaldi today, at 56 years old. If you don’t show up, you can’t win,” Agassi said.
“It’s just disappointing. This tournament has been full of so many surprises. This is not the kind of surprise that anybody wants to see. … Physically, he would have had a chance to be at his best. But obviously, it was something that had better be unimaginable. Because it is a disappointment.”
“I can tell you if you’re throwing up, and if you’re not feeling well, you can see what tennis takes out of you,” Agassi continued.
“With the amount of hours spent on court, if you’re not out there hydrated, you’re not out there prepared to go, it’s a futile effort anyhow. So I do feel bad for him. I feel bad for tennis as well.”
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Meanwhile, Arnaldi has confessed that he made “the right decision” after he was forced to pull out of the French Open semi-finals just 20 minutes before taking to the court.
“It’s not what I wanted to do, but last night I started to feel not very well,” Arnaldi told reporters. “Like yesterday I was felling okay. … I woke up at 1 a.m. and I started vomiting. And I wasn’t like feeling the best. … I couldn’t sleep at all. At 6 (or) 7 a.m., I vomited again. This time was pretty bad. … I was hoping it would just be something from dinner or something like that. … It’s tough, for how the tournament was. For how many hours I spent on court, I was feeling actually very good. To have to withdraw from your first slam semifinal is not something that you wish to anybody.”
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