Nick Kyrgios forced to withdraw from Halle Open due to knee injury

Last year’s Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the Halle Open on Monday in his latest setback as he tries to recover from a long-running knee injury.

“I tried everything here in Halle the last couple of days, but then I had to make the decision to pull out”, Kyrgios said in a statement on the tournament website. “I want, when I play, to deliver a performance like last year when I was in the semifinals. But that will really not be possible.”

Tournament organizers said Kyrgios was “still suffering from the aftereffects of a complicated knee injury which had put him out of action for around seven months,” adding that he felt a recurrence of the knee issue while training in Halle.

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Kyrgios, who had knee surgery in January, returned to action last week for the first time since October in a straight-set loss to Wu Yibing at the grass-court Stuttgart Open.

Halle is another grass event viewed as a warmup for Wimbledon. The Australian had been due to play Lorenzo Sonego in the first round and his place has now been taken by former Australian Open semifinalist Aslan Karatsev.