Belgian 10th seed David Goffin quit his French Open third round match on Friday after suffering an ankle injury when he got caught up in court covers.
Goffin was leading Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos 5-4 when he chased down the ball towards the back of the Suzanne Lenglen court. However, his right foot got horribly jammed beneath the rolled-up covers before he tumbled into the wall and a linesman's chair.
Goffin, 26, was helped from the court by two officials and retired in the locker room. His coach Thierry van Cleemput said that Goffin had undergone an MRI scan which revealed there was no break.
"The objective is to have optimal safety for all players on the courts, and here at Roland Garros the staff is professional enough," said van Cleemput.
"Of course they have asked themselves all of these questions (about the position of the rolled-up tarpaulin covers). I don't think that this event will be followed by no consequences. There will be consequences."
Canada's World No. 6 Milos Raonic said he had every sympathy for Goffin. "It's a bad accident. It's very unfortunate," said Raonic, who made the last 16 on Friday also through a retirement when Guillermo Garcia-Lopez quit with an injury.
"When you're getting in that area there, whether it be in the back of the court, or on the sides, there is some kind of I guess exposure to danger. But what happened even in that scenario, you can tell it was a freak accident. I hope it's nothing too serious for him."
Zeballos, the World No. 65, has now reached the last 16 of a Slam for the first time where he will play either Austrian sixth seed Dominic Thiem or Steve Johnson, the 25th-seeded American. But Zeballos admitted he felt for Goffin and sportingly carried the Belgian's bag off the court.
"The thing with this court is that it's very big. It's huge. It's six metres from the baseline to the end," he said.
"But still, of course, it's a little danger."
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