‘It’s the worst feeling ever, but it’s the right thing to do’: Matteo Berrettini quits Roland Garros with an injury in QFs

Matteo Berrettini's Roland Garros campaign ended in pain as the Italian was forced to retire midway through his quarter-final match due to a hip injury. Berrettini, who was playing his first major quarter-final since the 2022 US Open retired the match when he was trailing 7-5, 5-2 to his fellow countrymen Matteo Arnaldi.The Italian conceded it's the worst feeling ever but admitted, "It's the right thing to do," as it's not the last tournament he was playing in his career.“I’m the last one that wants to retire. I'm so tired of it. I just don't want to do it, but sometimes you have to do it,” Berrettini said, as quoted by the ATP tour. “A lot of players have done it in the past, and it's the worst feeling ever, but it's the right thing to do, because it's not the last tournament I'm going to play in my life, and I have to think about my future. I have to think about my recovery.”The former Wimbledon finalist started the match brightly as he raced to a 3-0 lead against Arnaldi. It appeared the Italian was on track for an even deeper run in his first Roland Garros appearance since 2021. But due to injury, Berrettini was left to rue what could have been, unable to move well enough to compete. Shortly after losing a gruelling 76-minute first set, Berrettini left the court for a medical timeout down 2-1 in the second set and three games later he retired from the match as he was unable to remedy the injury."Hopefully it's nothing too bad. I'm obviously disappointed, but I think if I kept playing, I would have done way worse and probably the recovery time would have been longer. Unfortunately, I didn't have any other choice than retire," Berrettini said.The former World No. 6, began the tournament at World No. 105 and is now No. 48 in the ATP Live Rankings. Berrettini showed signs of his attacking tennis which propelled him to top-10 in the world earlier."It's going to be tough, but that's the mentality that I like to — that's how I like to approach these two weeks. And of course I'm disappointed; I'm sad, but I'm also proud of the way I fought through this tournament," the Italian said.Arnaldi, who has a ranking of 104 in the world, is the lowest-ranked male player to reach a French Open singles semi-final since Filip Dewulf did so in 1997 when ranked 122nd.The Italian spent the most amount of time on court by a player in his run to the semifinals in Paris will now face another countrymen 10th-seed Flavio Cobboli for a place in a maiden Grand Slam final.