Which active men’s tennis player has lost the most matches by retirement? Does anyone want to take a guess?
If not, then you will have to scroll down to get the answer and we have to say we were surprised by the name and the fact that his tally was six more than the next player on the list.
Nick Kyrgios’ first-ever defeat via retirement came against Dominic Thiem in Nice in 2015 as he threw in the towel with the score 4-3 in the opening set due to an elbow injury. His most recent retirement was at Wimbledon 2021 against Felix Auger-Aliassime when he retired at 2-6, 6-1 because of an abdominal injury.
Besides the 10 retirements, Kyrgios has also lost four matches via walkover.
Former world No 19 Marcel Granollers is also in double figures although he hasn’t retired since Moscow 2015 when he threw in the towel with the score 5-2 in Stephane Robert’s favour.
=8. Dusan Lajovic and Jiri Vesely – 11 retirements
Dusan Lajovic’s most recent retirement came in August 2023 at the Cincinnati Open. The Serbian came through qualifying and he upset eighth seed Jannik Sinner in the round of 32, but the workload took its toll as he retired from his fourth-round clash against Taylor Fritz with the American leading 5-0.
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Jiri Vesely didn’t have a particularly good time during the mid-2016 season as he retired from his match against Carlos Berlocq at the Umag Open in mid-July and then also retired from his match against Andrey Kuznetsov at the Winston-Salem Open a few weeks later.
He then featured in the first round of the US Open, but was unable to play against world No 1 Novak Djokovic in the second round, giving the top seed a walkover.
=5. Novak Djokovic, Benoit Paire and Mikhail Kukushkin – 13 retirements
Novak Djokovic came in for a lot of criticism during his younger days for not finishing matches. He even drew the ire of Roger Federer after he retired from his quarter-final clash against Andy Roddick at the 2009 Australian Open.
“He’s not a guy who’s never given up before. It’s disappointing. I’ve only done it once in my career. Andy [Roddick] totally deserved to win that match. I’m almost in favour of saying, you know what, if you’re not fit enough, just get out of here,” Federer said.
Ten of Djokovic’s 13 retirements came during the first 10 years of his career with only three coming after 2015. In fact, he hasn’t retired from a match since the 2019 US Open when he was booed after throwing in the towel during his round of 16 clash against Stan Wawrinka with the score 6-4, 7-5, 2-1 in the Swiss’ favour.
Benoit Paire is no stranger to controversy as he is the first to admit that he is not passionate about tennis. The 2021 season saw the Frenchman retire three times while in 2022 he threw in the towel twice.
