De Minor: "It's disrespectful to confront Novak if you're not 100 percent ready"

"I'm devastated, but I had to pull out due to a hip injury, a little tear of the fiber cartilage that is at the end to the adductor," De Minaur said. "I felt a loud crack during the last three points of my match against Fils and got a scan yesterday and it confirms that this was the injury. [There is] a high risk of making it worse if I was to step on court", De Minaur said.

"It's no secret that at this stage in my career this was the biggest match of my career," De Minaur said. "I wanted to do anything I could to play. I got the results yesterday. I knew what the results were yesterday. I still wanted to wake up today hoping that I would feel some sort of miracle and not feel it while I'm walking'', De Minaur said, adding:

"The problem with me going out and playing is that one stretch, one slide, one anything, could make this injury go from three to six weeks to four months. It was too much to risk", De Minaur explained.

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“It's devastating. No way to beat around the bush,” De Minaur said. “It kind of happened when I slid out to a forehand. Created a lot of force and heard that crack, which, yeah, knew it was never going to be something good''.

“I think this injury is more of a freak injury. It's an excessive amount of force made to slide on a grass court. I only did this because at the time it was match point, right, and so I just went for it for a slide that was probably a little bit more than normal.”

"I've been struggling to sleep the last couple of days. I still wanted to wake up hoping that I would feel less pain. At least enough to be able to get on the court. It's disrespectful to go on the court and not be 100 percent ready. Especially against someone like Novak."

Did he inform Djokovic in time?

"I wanted to give myself a chance. I warmed up as early as I could and I knew what my situation was. I didn't see Novak, I saw his manager and I told him. But yeah, I haven't seen Novak yet," concluded De Minaur.