Top seeds are trounced
Rome, May 17: Defending champion Andy Murray crashed to a heavy 6-2, 6-4 defeat in his opener against Fabio Fognini at the Rome Masters on Tuesday, after receiving a firstround bye.
Murray limped to another premature exit in little over 90 minutes, with flamboyant shotmaker Fognini bossing the Scottish top seed around at will and breaking him four times. He hasn’t reached the quarter-final of a major event in 2017, with the loss to Fognini his seventh of the season.
World number one Angelique Kerber crashed out on Wednesday, the top seed beaten 6-4, 6-0 in the second round by Anett Kontaveit of Estonia.
The defeat demonstrated more of the patchy and inconsistent form which the 29-year-old cannot seem to shake off since starting to duel with Williams at the top of the WTA listings last season.
Earlier, Maria Sharapova retired with an injury in her secondround match in Rome, just hours after she was denied a wild card for the French Open.
Sharapova, who was wearing a bandage on her left thigh, pulled out of her contest against Croatian veteran Mirjana Lucic-Baroni while leading 4-6, 6-3, 2-1 to round out a miserable day for the five-time Grand Slam champion.
Defeat in Rome meant the 30-year-old also missed out on a chance to qualify for the main draw at Wimbledon, which she could have achieved by reaching the semi-finals in the Italian capital.