Hurt Serena withdraws from French Open as Nadal, Halep cruise and Azarenka falls

Paris: Serena Williams suffered another blow in her bid for a 24th Grand Slam title as the American withdrew from the French Open on Wednesday with an Achilles injury, while 12-time champion Rafael Nadal and women’s top seed Simona Halep eased into the third round.

The 39-year-old Williams, a three-time winner at Roland Garros, pulled out ahead of her second round match against Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova citing the injury that prompted her to skip the Rome tune-up event.

“The Achilles didn’t have enough time to heal after the US Open,” said Williams, who admitted last week she was not fully fit after her run to the semi-finals in New York.

“I’m struggling to walk, so that’s kind of a telltale sign that I should try to recover.”

The injury likely means she will miss the rest of 2020, leaving the Australian Open in 2021 as her next chance to equal Margaret Court’s all-time majors record. Her decision to pull out handed Pironkova a walkover and left Williams searching for a first major since the last of her 23 titles at Melbourne in 2017.

Nadal looked in ominous form as he stepped up his pursuit of Roger Federer’s 20 major titles with a crushing win over 236th-ranked American Mackenzie McDonald. The Spaniard batted aside McDonald 6-1, 6-0, 6-3 in exactly 100 minutes and will meet Japan’s Kei Nishikori or Stefano Travaglia of Italy for a spot in the last 16.

The 34-year-old needs one more major to pull level with long-time rival Federer and owns an astonishing 95-2 record in Paris going back to his triumph on debut in 2005.

Meanwhile, Victoria Azarenka, runner up at the recent US Open, crashed out in the second round of Roland Garros after losing in straight sets Wednesday to Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.

The Belarusian 10th seed hit 38 unforced errors in a 6-2, 6-2 defeat against a player who hadn’t won a Grand Slam match in five years before her first-round victory over Venus Williams.

Women’s favourite and 2018 champion Simona Halep beat compatriot Irina-Camelia Begu 6-3, 6-4 to extend her career-best winning streak to 16 matches.

However, her next opponent is American 25th seed Amanda Anisimova, the teenager who dumped Halep out in straight sets in last year’s quarter-finals.

US Open champion Dominic Thiem swept into the third round with a 6-1, 6-3, 7-6 (8/6) victory over American qualifier Jack Sock, saving three set points to close out the match. The Austrian third seed will play Norway’s Casper Ruud for a place in the last 16.

Dutch fifth seed Kiki Bertens had to be taken off court in a wheelchair after a fiery win over former finalist Sara Errani.

Bertens triumphed 7-6 (7/5), 3-6, 9-7 in a three-hour 11-minute clash which left her in cramps and Italian Errani screaming an obscenity as she left the court.

Ukrainian third seed Elina Svitolina overcame Mexican qualifier Renata Zarazua 6-3, 0-6, 6-2.

Svitolina is coming off a title at Strasbourg last week and will next play Russian 27th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, but was briefly taken aback by a sonic boom over Roland Garros. The thunderous noise that panicked residents of Paris was caused by a French fighter jet that broke the sound barrier.

“I was a bit worried because I thought something bad happened,” said Svitolina.

The military said the plane had been scrambled to go to the aid of another aircraft that had lost radio contact, and was authorised to travel at supersonic speed.

Stan Wawrinka, the 2015 French Open winner, followed up his demolition of Andy Murray with a 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 defeat of Germany’s Dominik Koepfer.

In a late Tuesday match, Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, the runner-up in Hamburg, also needed five sets to make the second round, beating Spain’s Jaume Munar 4-6, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 on the back of 54 winners.

“I never had a match like this before,” said Tsitsipas after coming back from two sets down for the first time in his career.

Agence France-Presse