BARTY IS OVER: Injury forces former French Open champion to retire in the second round

Australia’s Barty, who lifted her maiden major at Roland Garros in 2019, was trailing 1-6, 2-2 against Poland’s Magda Linette when she decided she could no longer continue. The top seed had started the match with taping on her left thigh.

Barty had struggled with the injury even during her opening win and later said that she suffered a flare-up through her left hip during the weekend. “It is heartbreaking,” Barty told reporters. “We have had such a brilliant clay court season. As much as it hurts, it won’t take away the brilliant three months we have had,” added Barty.

Meanwhile, Serena Williams of the USA overcame a second-set blip to reach the third round with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 win against Romania’s Mihaela Buzarnescu on Wednesday.

World No.1 Novak Djokovic put on a clinical display to stroll past Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 on Thursday and reach the French Open men’s singles third round.

Cuevas, ranked 92nd in the world, showed flashes of resistance against the 34-year-old Serbian, but the top seed raised his game when he needed to and produced some sublime winners off his backhand. Djokovic broke Cuevas’s serve a second time to go 5-3 up in the opening set, but found himself 0-40 down on his own serve.

The Serbian, however, grabbed the next five points to seal the lead on a sunlit Suzanne Lenglen court. The 35-year-old Cuevas’s challenge fell away as Djokovic broke his opponent’s serve three more times to complete the win.

Meanwhile, Roger Federer lost his trademark cool but found some vintage tennis as he beat Marin Cilic 6-2, 2-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 to move into the third round. The 39-year-old Swiss brushed Cilic aside in a one-sided first set, but lost the second after a heated debate with the chair umpire over the time he was taking to towel down.

Croatia’s Cilic looked dangerous when he battled back from a break down in the third set, but Federer was on top in the tie-break. A Cilic double fault gifted eighth seed Federer a break for 3-1 in the fourth set and there was no way back from there.

Rohan Bopanna and his Croatian partner Franko Skugor advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the French Open men’s doubles event with a straight-set win over Americans Frances Tiafo and Nicholas Monroe on Thursday. The unseeded combination of Bopanna and Skugor prevailed 6-4, 7-5 in the second round match that lasted an hour and 20 minutes.