FILE PHOTO: Tennis – Australian Open – Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia – January 20, 2022 Britain’s Emma Raducanu in action during her second round match against Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File Photo
February 23, 2022
Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu couldn’t complete her first match since the Australian Open, retiring in the third set of an opening-round contest against Australia’s Daria Saville on Tuesday in the Abierto Akron Zapopan at Guadalajara, Mexico.
The match was 3 1/2 hours old when Raducanu stopped. She earlier received treatment on her left leg/hip.
Raducanu was up 7-5, 5-3, 30-15 in the second set, two points from a victory. She couldn’t close out the game, though, and she later squandered a 3-1 lead in the tiebreaker.
In the third set, Raducanu broke serve in the opening game before Saville broke back for 2-2. Saville was up 4-3 when the match ended.
Raducanu, 19, is the reigning U.S. Open champion. She stumbled in the second round of the year’s first major, the Australian Open, due in part to blisters on her right hand.
Other first-round winners in Guadalajara included third-seeded Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain, fourth-seeded Camila Osorio of Colombia, China’s Xinyu Wang, France’s Chloe Paquet and the United States pair of Hailey Baptiste and Caroline Dolehide.
Qatar TotalEnergies Open
Top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus breezed to a 6-2, 6-2 win against France’s Alize Cornet in a second-round match at Doha, Qatar.
The 2020 tournament champion won 24 of 29 points on her first serve and never faced a break point in the 74-minute match. Sabalenka’s next opponent is Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann, who outlasted Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck 7-6 (9), 7-5.
No. 8 seed Ons Jabeur of Tunisia rallied for a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory against Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus. Other seeded players advancing included No. 2 Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, No. 3 Paula Badosa of Spain, No. 6 Maria Sakkari of Greece, No. 7 Iga Swiatek of Poland, No. 9 Jessica Pegula, No. 14 Coco Gauff, No. 15 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia and No. 16 Elise Mertens of Belgium.
Other unseeded winners Tuesday included Tereza Martincova of the Czech Republic, Daria Kasatkina of Russia and Madison Brengle, who won in a walkover as No. 12 seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus withdrew with a hip injury.
–Field Level Media
