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Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard suddenly retired from his match against Arthur Gea at the Open Occitanie after hitting himself in the face in a freak accident. The young Frenchman was playing for the first time since he was knocked out of the Australian Open by Sebastian Baez in the opening round. He would have been hoping for a swift return to winning ways but didn't even get to finish the match in an unfortunate twist.

It was a chastening return to the court for Mpetshi Perricard, who fell behind early on and was unable to recover. As the opening set drew to a close, he accidentally hit himself in the face with the ball, which bounced off his racket and onto the 22-year-old's right eye. He immediately doubled over in pain, clasping his hands to his face and needing a moment to recover from the unexpected blow.

Medics rushed onto the court to provide treatment, with an off-court medical timeout giving Mpetshi Perricard valuable time to compose himself. When he finally returned, he was visibly struggling to keep his reddened and bloodshot eye open.

He went on to lose the opening set, with Gea winning six games to three. The former didn't come back onto the court for the second set, instead choosing to concede the match.

He was left unable to continue because of the injury to his eye, despite recovering to play one more point before the end of the first set.

Mpetshi Perricard was supposed to be teaming up with Stan Wawrinka for a doubles match later in the day, but that fixture was cancelled in light of his withdrawal against Gea.

Gea, who will face Tomas Machac in the next round, expressed sympathy with his injured rival in his post-match interview.

He said: "It's never easy to see a friend like this. Obviously, I didn't want to do [it like] this, but it's the game. He touched the ball, not on purpose.

"I was handling the match really [well] in the beginning. I was really good on the court and he was also playing really good. It was really stressful, but it was a good match."

Mpetshi Perricard is scheduled to return to action at the BNP Paribas Open, which begins in early March. He is yet to comment publicly on the nature of his injury.

The incident drew similarities with David Goffin's own freak eye injury at the Rotterdam Open in 2018. On that occasion, the ball struck his left eye after bouncing off the frame of his racket at an awkward angle.

Goffin avoided serious injury but was forced to withdraw from subsequent tournaments due to swelling around his eye that refused to subside.