Michael Matthews had to be consoled by a teammate after his chances of winning the Tour de France green jersey slipped dramatically in stage 10.
A devastated Matthews took 13th place in Tuesday's sprint-friendly stage between Perigueux and Bergerac, won by main green jersey rival Marcel Kittel.
The result may prompt Matthews to give up his pursuit of the becoming the first Australian since Robbie McEwan in 2006 to win the honour.
"Today was really one of the days where we needed to nail it. We didn't," Matthews said.
"Devastated. I think it's probably the word to put out now."
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Kittel executed his race superbly on relatively flat terrain, extending his lead atop the points classification with a fourth stage win.
He sits 102 points ahead of second-placed Matthews.
The 26-year-old Matthew sat head-in-hands outside his team bus post-race for several minutes before teammate Nikias Arndt arrived to console him.
"I think knowing that now if I want to go for (the green jersey). It's going to be a long battle," Matthew said.
"I think that's something we'll have to discuss tonight, whether we keep going for it or we give it a miss, stop going for the intermediates and just focus on stage (wins).
"If you want to go for the jersey, you need to be up there every single day.
"Until now I've been pretty consistent with that but with this finish, it's a bit disappointing."
Matthews' chances for a maiden green jersey title improved when sprint heavyweights Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish were ruled out of the Tour after a stage four incident.
He rued his team's failure to executive the pre-race plan on Tuesday.
"It was a miscommunication with the lead-out train today but we weren't where we said we wanted to be in the meeting," Matthews said.
"And it left me with a long sprint to even try to get into the top 15 to get to any points."
Kittel, who now has 13 Tour career stage wins, conversely was in full praise of his Quick-Step Floors teammates.
"I just do what I can do best, which is sprinting. I'm enjoying this huge event together with my teammates," he said.
"We trust each other, and this is very special, very important to me."
Briton Chris Froome holds the overall lead.
