Men’s French Open runner-up bounced early at Wimbledon
WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND — Yet another of the highest-ranked players on the men’s tour is out of the tournament at Wimbledon. Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal are not among them.
Casper Ruud, the runner-up to Nadal at this year’s French Open, became the seventh of the top 11-ranked male players to be out of the grass-court Grand Slam for either losing early, injury, illness or being banned.
Ruud, who was seeded third but ranked sixth, lost to Ugo Humbert of France 3-6, 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 on Wednesday in the second round.
Djokovic, a six-time Wimbledon champion who is looking for his fourth straight title at the All England Club, beat Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 to reach the third round. Nadal advanced to the second round on Tuesday.
The third-ranked Djokovic, No. 4 Nadal, No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas and No. 7 Carlos Alcaraz are the only players in the top 11 remaining in the draw. Top-ranked Daniil Medvedev is out because of a ban on Russians over the war in Ukraine, No. 2 Alexander Zverev is injured, No. 8 Andrey Rublev of Russia is also banned, No. 9 Felix Auger-Aliassime and No. 10 Hubert Hurkacz lost, and No. 11 Matteo Berrettini withdrew after testing positive for COVID-19.
In the women’s tournament, three of the top 11 ranked players were eliminated on Wednesday.
Anett Kontaveit lost to Juke Niemeier of Germany 6-4, 6-0, while 2017 Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza was beaten by Greet Minnen 6-4, 6-0 and U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu lost to Caroline Garcia 6-3, 6-3.
Kontaveit was seeded second at Wimbledon but is ranked third.
Kontaveit said she had COVID-19 in recent months and has struggled to get her energy back.
“I had it a couple, two months ago, I think, or something like that. Then I tried to come back very quickly. I started training. It was low intensity, but I was still training every day. I think that was where I went wrong,” the 26-year-old Estonian said. “Just thinking back at it, I probably should have given myself more time to recover.”