MADRID: Novak Djokovic’s hopes of a rare doubles title on the eve of Wimbledon were shattered Thursday when he was forced to withdraw from the Mallorca final after his Spanish partner Carlos Gomez-Herrera suffered a foot injury.
World number one Djokovic and longtime friend Gomez-Herrera had defeated third seeds Oliver Marach and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to reach the final in their first tournament playing together.
However, later in the day the pair withdrew.
“Novak Djokovic and Carlos Gomez-Herrera have withdrawn from the Mallorca doubles final (foot injury, Gomez-Herrera),” said an ATP statement.
“The winner of Simone Bolelli and Maximo Gonzalez v Marcus Daniell and Philipp Oswald will take the title.” Earlier Djokovic had been overjoyed to reach the final on the grass courts of Mallorca where he was building up to the defence of his Wimbledon title next week.
“I don’t think we expected to reach the finals,” Djokovic said in an on-court interview afterwards.
“But if we play well, we can return very well, we serve very well and I think we have a quite solid net game.” In the singles event, top seed Daniil Medvedev came through a tight opening set to beat Norway’s Casper Ruud 7-5, 6-1 and book his place in the semi-final.