Stefanos Tsitsipas on court for less than 15 minutes before sudden retirement against Arthur Fils

Stefanos Tsitsipas has had a superb few months but his good luck has eroded slightly as he was forced to retire 15 minutes in against Arthur Fils on Friday afternoon at the Barcelona Open.

Tsitsipas found himself 2-0 down and in reality it was less than the allotted time with most of it taken up by a medical timeout. Just six minutes in, he took an MTO and soon returned to the court and looked set to continue.

Only for the World No.16 to confirm that he could not play just a few minutes later which Fils at the time found bizarre. "We played six minutes and will now stop for six minutes," he said post match.

But at the same time, he paid tribute to Tsitsipas post match despite the bizarre situation. “I think it’s the back. I’m not very sure to be honest. I was ready to battle for a few hours because he’s a champion. Every time we play we have tough matches. My wish is he’s gonna be ready for the next weeks and for French Open. I wish him the best. I don’t know what he had but I wish him the best.”

Tsitsipas will be destined for a further ranking drop as he will not defend his ranking points from last year's final spot at the Barcelona Open. Fils now has to gear up for an ultimate test as he faces off against Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals who he lost to at the Monte-Carlo Masters.

“I have another great match against Carlitos. We had a great fight in Monte Carlo. Let’s hope we have a nice fight tomorrow as well. Of course. The last match was very positive. Of course, I lost it, but still very positive," he added.

“Tomorrow is going to be different. We are in Spain. He’s playing great here. I think he won twice already. So yeah, it’s going to be a nice one. I watched a little bit of the match against Alex… Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.”

On Tsitsipas, David Ferrer confirmed that it seemed to be a back spasm and that they were looking to see the extent of the injury after the match so it is likely to be known if he plays in Madrid or Rome over the next few weeks as to how bad it actually is.