Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Injury hampers Raducanu
EMMA Raducanu’s French Open preparations suffered a setback as she was forced to retire from her first-round match at the Internazionali BNL D’Italia.
A niggling back issue, which hampered her at the Madrid Open last week, cost her as she struggled through 11 games against Bianca Andreescu.
The British No 1 was 6-2 2-1 down when she left the court in Rome, telling a physio: “I can’t move.”
A one-sided first set saw Raducanu have no answer to Andreescu’s power while struggling to land her own serve.
Raducanu spent some time off the court for treatment and was clearly uncomfortable when play got back under way.
Andreescu, like Raducanu born in Canada with Romanian heritage and a US Open winner, is also building back up to fitness after a knee injury,
Now Raducanu, currently without a fulltime coach following her split from Torben Beltz, will be hoping to return to full fitness by the time the French Open gets under way at Roland Garros in under a fortnight’s time.
In the men’s draw, Novak Djokovic stormed into the third round as he aims to retain his place at the top of the men’s rankings.
A 6-3 6-2 victory over Aslan Karatsev saw Djokovic advance, knowing he needs to reach the semis to remain world number one having missed several tournaments due to his coronavirus vaccination status.
There was also a win for British ninth seed Cameron Norrie, who beat wildcard Luca Nardi 6-4 6-4 to set-up a third-round clash with Marin Cilic.