Veteran Wayne Arthurs was forced to retire from his farewell Australian Open after an injection of local anaesthetic left him with no feeling or coordination in his right leg.
The 35-year-old Australian had already announced that this was to be his last Open and that he would retire later in the year, but he was hoping to at least go out with all guns blazing.
Instead it ended horribly after three games of his third round match against Mardy Fish of the US.
PHOTO: AP
With the crowd urging him on, he went through the motions of serving and won the first point.
Buckled
But his leg buckled after his next serve, leaving him sprawling on the baseline and close to tears.
Two games later, he walked to the net and shook hands with Fish then returned to his chair and buried his face in a towel.
"I had a pre-existing injury with my hip. It was getting sorer over the last three days where I injured it during my second round match," he said. "It was an idea to have a local anaesthetic in my hip this morning."
He tried a short term acting anaesthetic in training and it worked well but when doctors injected him with a longer lasting one just before his match, he reacted badly.
Numb
"I had a reaction to the anaesthetic and had no coordination, no feelings in my right leg at all. Just completely gone on the right side. As you could see, I couldn't coordinate at all on the right side," he said.
Arthurs refused to blame the doctors, saying it wasn't their fault.
"I don't blame the doctor, no. I've been told it's a one-in-a-thousand thing. I've reacted to it like one-in-a-thousand person would. I'm not putting blame on anybody," he said.
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