Alexei Popyrin was left wondering forlornly where he goes next after the recent shooting star of Australian tennis suffered another low point in his traumatic year with a tame first-round French Open exit.

The player touted as the major threat to Alex de Minaur as Australian No.1 and still ranked in the world’s top 20 as recently as August will now plummet to at best No.85 after being beaten 3-6 6-3 7-6 (7-3) 7-5 by American Zachary Svajda.

His freefall will also see him sink in the Australian rankings to at least No.3 behind James Duckworth, and while his first-round five-set exit at the Australian Open left him tearful, this early capitulation just seemed to leave him numb.

Asked what happens next, the 26-year-old, who has seen the French clay as his forte, having reached the last-16 last year and been a former Roland Garros boys’ champion, was clearly too dismayed to offer any clear vision.

“We’ll see. I don’t know yet, I’m not sure, it’s too close to the match,” Popyrin said glumly.

“I’m still a little bit emotional, so I don’t want to make an emotional decision at all, in terms of what I’m going to do, in terms of schedules, in terms of anything, actually.

“So I’m just going to take some time, cool off a little bit, and then we’ll see what I’ll do.”

What will have shattered Popyrin, who in 2024 achieved what de Minaur has yet to do by winning a Masters 1000 event in Canada, was that it’s only in the past few weeks he’d felt “I’ve got my mojo back” after wins over Matteo Berrettini, Jakub Mensik and Taylor Fritz.

He’d looked well equipped to handle Svajda, who had won just one clay-court match and lost five all season going into the contest.

“He played well, probably I let him play well with the way that I played,’‘ Popyrin said.

“Yeah, there’s really not much for me to say. I lost the match, he won the match. I tried to play the way that I wanted to play, and I guess it didn’t work out.’‘

It had looked odds-on, when the Sydneysider served at 5-3 in the fourth set to level up a tight affair, that the match would go the distance, but his serve let him down and he was clearly left fuming with himself as misplaced drop shots were punished.

“He came up with some great points, with two hustle runs to the drop shots and hit them both on the line,’‘ Popyrin said.

“But it comes down to if I want to hold, I have to make more first serves and start the points on the front foot, especially in conditions like this, and I just didn’t do that enough in that game.”