Juan Martin del Potro, the popular No. 29 seed, showed great compassion as his Spanish opponent Nicolas Almagro retired due to a left knee injury after 90 minutes of play on Thursday at Roland Garros.
With the match level at one set-all, Del Potro served at 1-1 in the second set, but Almagro did not return the serve and collapsed in agony behind the baseline. Del Potro raced over to console Almagro, who has suffered a number of injuries in recent years, and walked him to his courtside chair.
"I don't feel good enough after this sad situation," said del Potro. "I wish a good recovery to Nico. Hopefully he can feel better very, very soon, because he's a great player and we love to have him on tour. Of course, it's not easy for me when you have a friend on the other side of the court showing an injury or crying. It was really a bad moment for both, but I wish all the best to him.
"I tried to find good words for that moment. I said to him, 'Try to be calm. Try to think about his family, his baby.' Sometimes the heart is first, then the tennis match or our tennis life. And I think he has everything to fix this problem and come back on tour stronger."
Del Potro, who admitted to be suffering from a groin injury, will next meet World No. 1 Andy Murray, the 2016 finalist, who fought hard to beat Martin Klizan. "I felt something in my groin in the middle of the first set," said del Potro. "And then I won that set and then tried to take time for the anti-inflammatories to go into effect on my body."
Seventh seed Marin Cilic lost just two of his first service points (42/44), and struck 11 aces, among 32 winners, in a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Russian’s Konstantin Kravchuk. The Croatian, now one match win away from 100 clay-court career victories (99-63), will next meet Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, who edged past No. 30 seed and 2013 runner-up David Ferrer 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.
“I'm taking it step by step - that's the most important part,” said Cilic. "Definitely my big focus, as I was mentioning also in the past couple days, is to keep going with my game, to focus on that. That's my only priority. How far I can go? I don't know. It's not up to me only.
“I'm very satisfied with the way I'm playing. The past two matches were really good quality tennis. And also today, from beginning until the end, keeping the pressure, applying it whenever I had chances, and serving well, taking care of the short balls was really good.”
Eighth seed Kei Nishikori overcame a losing record on clay against Frenchman Jeremy Chardy to advance to the third round. The 27-year-old Japanese saved seven of nine break points to knock out home favourite Chardy 6-3, 6-0, 7-6(5). The right-hander moves into the third round at Roland Garros for the third consecutive year and the fourth time overall. He will next challenge #NextGenATP Korean Hyeon Chung, who defeated Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin 6-1, 7-5, 6-1.
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