Nick Kyrgios pulls out of Halle Open with knee injury shortly after comeback
Last year's Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the Halle Open 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 semi-finals. But that will really not be possible.”
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Tournament organisers said Kyrgios was "still suffering from the after-effects 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.
Nick Kyrgios of Australia. Getty
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 warm-up 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 semi-finalist Aslan Karatsev.
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