Paris
Former champion Garbine Muguruza suffered a first-round defeat as big names tumbled in the French Open first round on Monday.
The Spaniard, who beat Serena Williams to win the title in 2016, was outplayed 6-1 6-4 by Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk.
Muguruza, the 12th seed, racked up 40 unforced errors as she suffered her earliest ever defeat at Roland Garros.
It was a poor day for former women’s Grand Slam champions with Canada’s Bianca Andreescu becoming the highest women’s seed to fall at the French Open so far, losing a three-hour marathon against Tamara Zidansek.
Sixth seed Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion, went down 6-7(1) 7-6(2) 9-7 to the Slovenian.
Canadian Andreescu, 20, served for the match at 5-4 in the deciding set but Zidansek broke back before missing a match point of her own in a gripping finale.
Andreescu found herself in trouble again serving at 7-8 and this time was unable to dig her way out of trouble with world number 85 Zidansek winning in three hours and 20 minutes.
While on paper it was a shock, Andreescu was playing at only her third Tour-level claycourt tournament and her lack of matches on the surface ultimately proved decisive.
Her build-up was hardly helped by having to pull out of the Madrid and Rome tournaments after testing positive for Covid-19.
“I think I prepared super, super well for this tournament. That’s why to me it’s very disappointing, because I thought I could go far,” Andreescu, who has struggled with injuries since wining the 2019 U.S. Open, told reporters.—AFP
