Reigning US Open champion Emma Raducanu crashed out of the Australian Open in the second round on Thursday as she struggled with blisters on her hand so bad that some of her team had urged her not to play.
Raducanu, 19, making her debut at Melbourne Park, looked on track when she raced to a 3-0 lead in the opening set against Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic. But the 17th seed then lost five games in a row and needed a medical timeout for treatment on her right, racquet hand, and said afterwards that the blisters were so bad she had only been able to practise backhands. Despite battling back she couldn’t stop 98th ranked Kovinic winning 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
“I was struggling with my hand before the match. There were some people in my team that maybe didn’t want me to play, but I wanted to go out there and fight through it, see how far I could get,” said the Briton. “I thought it was a good learning experience for me. I discovered tools about myself and my game that I didn’t know I had before. I can take some positives.” Raducanu added that she had suffered from blisters before on her hand but never this bad.
Poor at practice
“I actually wasn’t hitting forehands in practice the last few days. I was only saving it for my match. I wasn’t hitting serves, either. So the only thing I was really practising was my backhand,” she said.
The result put Kovinic into the third round of a major for the first time. She will now play two-time Grand Slam winner Simona Halep, seeded 14, who crushed Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-2, 6-0 for a place in the fourth round.
“It’s my first time to be in the third round after so many years and it is, honestly, an amazing feeling because I really wanted this for so long,” said Kovinic, 27. “And I’m so glad that I can be the first Montenegrin ever to make it to this round. I’m making these results and making history in tennis for Montenegro. It’s a huge thing for me.”
Muguruza exits
Earlier, World No.3 Garbine Muguruza blamed COVID-19 for her early exit on Thursday, revealing her entire team had been struck down in the lead-up to the tournament, hampering her preparations. But, after a comfortable first-round win, she was stunned 6-3, 6-3 by French veteran Alize Cornet at the second hurdle.
Spain’s Muguruza said her preparations had been hit hard by Coronavirus. “It’s been a stressful start of the year with my team. They all got COVID before coming here. We were, like, for 15 days apart,” she said. “It was hard for me for the preparation to come to the Aussie swing and play and perform well. That was tricky. Physically here I wasn’t also feeling my best.”
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