{"id":36752,"date":"2026-01-19T15:04:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T15:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=36752"},"modified":"2026-01-19T15:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T15:04:21","slug":"players-hit-by-cramp-as-heat-and-heartbreak-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=36752","title":{"rendered":"Players hit by cramp as heat and heartbreak strike"},"content":{"rendered":"
Players struggled with cramp and injuries on the second day of the Australian Open on Monday, headlined by the retirement of seventh seed Felix Auger-Aliassime while his compatriot Marina Stakusic needed a wheelchair to leave the court.<\/p>\n

Canadian Auger-Aliassime arrived at Melbourne Park as a genuine dark horse after showing marked improvement on hard courts towards the end of 2025, but the 25-year-old was forced to withdraw when trailing Nuno Borges.<\/p>\n

The Portuguese was leading 3-6 6-4 6-4 when Auger-Aliassime was forced to end the contest after he started cramping at the start of the third set.<\/p>\n

“It became very difficult to be competitive at this level. I tried for a set but, yeah, wasn’t possible today,” he told reporters, adding that he was not sure if it had to do with the warm conditions.<\/p>\n

“I’m not totally finding the reasons why this is happening. It wasn’t happening in the past, so I’ll have to figure it out.<\/p>\n

“I want to be on the court winning. I want to be on the court competing with my opponent. I don’t want to be just standing there like a punching bag.”<\/p>\n

Stakusic collapses<\/p>\n

Australia’s Priscilla Hon advanced to the second round after Canadian qualifier Stakusic collapsed on the court in obvious pain when trailing 5-3 in the deciding set.<\/p>\n

As tournament officials helped her on to a wheelchair, Hon showed remarkable sportsmanship by coming to her opponent’s aid, holding Stakusic’s leg to make sure it stayed extended as they wheeled her out of the arena.<\/p>\n

“Obviously I didn’t want to win like that,” wild card Hon told reporters.<\/p>\n

“I really hope she does feel better. That was quite a scene out there. I had quite a few people come up to me and be, like, ‘Wow, that was so dramatic’.”<\/p>\n

However, Hon did not feel the conditions were that bad.<\/p>\n

“I’m Australian, so I should be quite used to it,” she said with a smile. “It was definitely warm out there and I think as well with the nerves, the stress levels, it just all impacts it.”<\/p>\n

In stoppage time, and with the score level, a penalty was awarded to Morocco after a Video Assistant Referee check.<\/p>\n

Jones retires with injury<\/p>\n

Britain’s Francesca Jones completed a trio of retirements, withdrawing in tears while trailing Polish qualifier Linda Klimovicova 6-2 3-2 after struggling with a leg injury that had already forced her out of her Auckland quarter-final.<\/p>\n

She had trouble with her movement in the first-round match where she took a medical timeout after the opening set and needed the physio to attend to her several times in the second before she told Klimovicova she could not continue.<\/p>\n

“I was harbouring a bit of an injury from Auckland in the right leg and, frustratingly, that injury has actually really been quite good, considering it was bigger than we first projected,” a distraught Jones said.<\/p>\n

“So I haven’t really played that many points or moved that much in the last 10 days. Unfortunately, 2-1 to 2-2 I went for a slice and the leg that I had injured, I slipped on it and fell.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Players struggled with cramp and injuries on the second day of the Australian Open on Monday, headlined by the retirement of seventh seed Felix Auger-Aliassime while his compatriot Marina Stakusic needed a wheelchair to leave the court. Canadian Auger-Aliassime arrived at Melbourne Park as a genuine dark horse after showing marked improvement on hard courts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}