Edmund in tears after injury ends hopes
Briton forced to retire while leading in third set Canadian Shapovalov marches into last 16
Kyle Edmund, the British No2 left Arthur Ashe Stadium in tears yesterday, and his frustration was understandable. A sudden spasm in his upper back had just derailed his US Open campaign at exactly the moment when the road to the bigmoney rounds seemed to be opening up.
The demise of fifth seed Marin Cilic earlier in the afternoon meant that no one in Edmund’s half of the draw had reached a grand-slam final before. So, when Edmund claimed the first set against 18-yearold Canadian Denis Shapovalov, he might have sensed the possibility of a breakthrough moment.
Instead, just as Edmund’s match was reaching the middle of a crucial third set, he suffered a sharp pain. “On one of the games on the deuce he had a second serve,” said Shapovalov afterwards. “I heard him grunt as if something happened, and he called a trainer at the next changeover.”
Edmund underwent a medical assessment, followed by a massage. He was 3-2 up in the third set at the time, after the first two had been split. But he could barely swing his racket thereafter, despite two further visits from the trainer. Shapovalov reeled off the next five games for the loss of only two points.
With the score standing at 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 1-0 in Shapovalov’s favour, Edmund came up to the net to shake hands. He then slumped in his chair for the best part of a minute, the tears flowing as he rubbed his own nape accusingly.
“It’s just the fact that it was such a horrible way to go out,” he explained. “It’s a tough thing to go on the biggest court in the world and feel a bit helpless, really. Do you carry on to the end? But you just go through the motions and it’s a bit of a sorry state.
“My back locked up and I couldn’t rotate properly. I knew that I wasn’t going to win two more sets feeling like that.”
Perhaps this was a case of last week’s exertions catching up with him. Edmund had played seven matches in Winston-salem, some 700 miles away in North Carolina, before arriving here only 48 hours before play was due to begin.
He needed the assistance of a can of Coke to get through his firstround match, against the Dutch No1 Robin Haase, because his legs had felt like lead. And his secondround win over Steve Johnson also needed some intervention from the pharmacist, who supplied Immodium to plug up an upset stomach.
A victory yesterday would have granted Edmund his second appearance in the last 16 of the US Open in successive years. Instead it will be Shapovalov, the charismatic Canadian whom Eurosport commentator Mats Wilander has described as “the most exciting of all the young prospects in the world”.
As the youngest man to reach the fourth round of a slam since Marat Safin at the 1998 French Open, Shapovalov could also be described as the fastest-rising prodigy since Rafael Nadal.
Who is to say that Shapovalov would not have taken this contest in any case? After a slow start, he grew into the match and was playing the more high-risk tennis, hurling himself into his service returns like a stuntman diving off a bridge.
Since he faced Edmund in the Davis Cup in February – a match that is best remembered for the broken orbital bone he inflicted on chair umpire Arnaud Gabas with an angry swipe at a loose ball – Shapovalov has improved at otherworldly speed
But it is an unfortunate oddity that two of the three matches between these players have not been completed, thanks to that default in Ottawa and now yesterday’s retirement.
“It’s never great to win this way,” said Shapovalov. “I hope it’s nothing serious. Kyle has been playing some unbelievable tennis and if he keeps it up he will do very well. What happened in the third set was very unfortunate.”
Meanwhile, the US Open responded yesterday to Caroline Wozniacki’s complaints about preferential scheduling for Maria Sharapova, who played all three of her matches on Arthur Ashe Arena.
US Open spokesman Chris Widmaier said: “Our philosophy, which likely parallels many others, is that her punishment is over. Now Maria Sharapova deserves a new chance. We have given other champions wild cards before, when they’ve needed them: Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Martin Del Potro, Kim Clijsters and Martina Hingis have got them.”
Finally, the six-time US Open champion Serena Williams gave birth to a baby girl yesterday near her home in Palm Beach. Reports claimed that an entire floor of the St Mary’s Medical Centre had been cleared to offer maximum privacy. “Obviously, I’m super excited,” said the baby’s aunt, Venus Williams as she took to the court. “Words can’t describe.”