Marat Safin's US Open preparations suffered a setback when the former world number one was forced to retire from his first round match at the ATP event in Washington with a neck injury on Tuesday. The Russian sixth seed lost the first set against Italian Fabio Fognini 7-5 and then decided to withdraw from the match.
"I just blocked it and I pulled a muscle," Safin told reporters, adding that he suffered the injury during the second point of the match. "It was getting worse and worse. I should have stopped earlier. I thought it might get a bit better, but it didn't." Safin said he would now rest and then go to New York to prepare for the US Open, which begins on August 25.
"I need at least four to five days to be able to turn it. I should be OK (for the US Open)," he said. "I can't do much about it. It's a pity but I have to deal with it." Despite the injury, Safin surged into a 3-0 lead but after dropping his serve in the fifth game, the double grand slam winner requested an injury timeout.
With his flexibility restricted and his service speed well down, Safin was broken again in a protracted 11th game to give Fognini a 6-5 lead. The world number 82 held to love in the next game to take the set before Safin decided he was unfit to continue. Fognini will now play another Russian, Igor Kunitsyn, for a place in the quarter-finals.
Defending champion Andy Roddick bucked the trend on a bad day for the seeds with a 6-3 7-6 victory over Ramon Delgado of Paraguay, hitting 21 aces in the process. Roddick double-faulted on match point when serving for the match at 5-4 but bounced back to win the tiebreak 7-4 and set up a meeting with Argentine Eduardo Schwank, who beat Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean 6-3 4-6 6-3.
Second seed Juan Martin Del Potro, who beat Roddick in the final of last week's Los Angeles event, also advanced after a 6-2 6-3 victory over American Jesse Levine. However, third seed Feliciano Lopez and fifth seed Mardy Fish both joined Safin on the sidelines.