ATP Finals star addresses pulling out of tournament and missing out on £126k

Felix Auger-Aliassime has addressed injury concerns after calling the physio during his opening match at the ATP Finals, where he struggled to push off his left leg. The Canadian has previously dealt with knee and calf injuries, and they came back to haunt him as he suffered a 7-5 6-1 defeat to Jannik Sinner.

It sparked concern about Auger-Aliassime's future in the tournament and whether he would withdraw before his next two round-robin matches against Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton. But Auger-Aliassime has now tamed those fears, playing down the injury.

Asked how concerned he was about his left calf, the No. 8 seed replied: "No, not dangerous. I'm not too concerned. He's an amazing player. You have to give credit when the guy is just better than you.

"Today he was better than me. I'll get ready for the next one. But no, I'm not too worried. Thank you."

Auger-Aliassime has played a lot of tennis of late. He retired in the middle of his Swiss Indoors quarter-final last month but bounced back to reach the Paris Masters final.

The 25-year-old then pulled out of last week's ATP 250 event in Metz and headed straight to Turin while waiting to learn whether he'd done enough to qualify for the ATP Finals. And he confirmed that the calf had nothing to do with his withdrawal in Metz.

"No, I talked about this week why I withdrew from Metz. Nothing with the calf. Yeah, let's see. I mean, it was a good match. It was a good match until the end. Like I said in the first answer, I'm not too worried," Auger-Aliassime added.

This is Auger-Aliassime's second career appearance at the ATP Finals. He qualified in 2022 and lost two of his three group stage matches to Casper Ruud and Taylor Fritz, but beat Rafael Nadal.

If the calf gets worse and Auger-Aliassime withdraws from the tournament, he can be replaced by one of the two alternates - Alexander Bublik or Ruud.

However, Auger-Aliassime would miss out on the full participation fee for playing three matches if he could not continue in the draw.

The world No. 8 has already earned £126k ($165.5k) for competing in one match. Players get £188k ($248k) for playing two matches, and £251k ($331k) for playing all three in the group stage. That doesn't include £301k ($396.5k) in prize money for each round-robin win.

Sinner will be delighted to hear that Auger-Aliassime isn't concerned about his calf, as the world No. 2 sent his well-wishes to his rival after the match.

"I also hope that it's nothing too serious. I wish him obviously a very, very speedy recovery, and we all hope that he is getting back to 100 per cent physically," the Italian said.