Brit No.1 sweating on Wimbledon after knee injury forces him to throw in towel in Paris

KYLE EDMUND is an injury doubt for Wimbledon after pulling out of the French Open with his chronic knee problem.

The British No.1 has been dogged by the condition since last November – and took six weeks off after losing in the first round of the Australian Open.

He ended a run of five consecutive defeats by winning his opening match in Paris, but the five-set victory over Jeremy Chardy took its toll.

And after losing the first two sets to Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas yesterday, the world No.30 quit at 2-1 down in the third and admitted he faced an uncertain future.

“I just wasn’t happy with my knee,” said Edmund, 24. “I don’t know if I will need time off or if Wimbledon is now a doubt. Obviously, I hope not and I will do everything I can.

“Who knows if it will be more or less of a problem on grass. I haven’t played with it on grass. Until I get on there, I don’t really know. It’s the left knee, so it’s the same injury that I’m dealing with basically. And I’ve been dealing with it for quite a while.

“It fluctuates. Some days it feels OK. Some days it’s a little bit worse. It can fluctuate between tournaments or weeks. It just all depends. The body is very complex.

“Sometimes it doesn’t make sense what happens but that’s just the way it is, and it can be hard to predict. You just get on with it. You can moan about it all you want and feel sorry for yourself, but no one else is going to feel sorry for you.”

He refused to give an exact diagnosis of his injury, but said surgery would only be a “last resort”.

Edmund is scheduled to next play at the Fever-Tree Championship at Queen’s Club starting on June 17.

Last year’s Australian Open semifinalist has won only six Tour-level matches all season and even if he is fit for SW19, he will be under-cooked and risks dropping out of the top 32 to put his seeding in danger. With Jo Konta through to the third round, victory for Edmund would have seen a British man and woman through to that stage here together for the first time since John Lloyd and Virginia Wade in 1982.

Now Konta (below) is the last Brit standing as she takes on world No.46 Viktoria Kuzmova – who has reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time. The Slovak, 21, is studying for a degree in International Relations and Diplomacy in Bratislava and also has a love of Shakespeare. “I have a book with me now,” said Kuzmova. “I’m reading Hamlet for the fifth time. I don’t remember things that well actually, which is why I’m reading it again.

“I read poetry in England, but I would never understand Shakespeare in English. I read Shakespeare in Slovakian.

“I have never been to Shakespeare country in Britain, but I would love to go.”