BRISBANE —World number two Garbine Muguruza suffered a fitness scare ahead of this month’s Australian Open when she was forced to retire from the Brisbane International on Tuesday with severe cramping.
Wimbledon champion Muguruza was ahead 2-1 in the deciding set against Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic in the second round of the warm-up tournament for the season’s first Grand Slam event when she collapsed to the ground following a serve.
The Spanish top seed was unable to continue and handed the match to Krunic 5-7, 7-6 (7/3), 2-1.
“I felt in trouble in the second set when I was 2-0 up,” Muguruza said.
“I started to feel my calves were cramping.”
Muguruza had won a tight first set and appeared heading for a straight sets win over Krunic when she opened up a 5-2 lead in the second.
However, she began to struggle in the 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) heat and oppressive humidity as Krunic fought back to win the second set on a tiebreak.
Muguruza received treatment from the physio on court before the start of the decider and broke Krunic only to collapse while serving to consolidate the service break.
“I continued to think that with the match they might go away, and then they were increasing, increasing. And then I had a lot of my body cramping,” Muguruza said.
The loss ends any hope Muguruza had of leapfrogging Simona Halep and becoming world number one before the seedings are decided for Australian Open, which begins on January 15.
But Muguruza was not too downhearted by having to withdraw.
“I’m pleased because we were playing very good points and, you know, good rallies,” she said.
“I felt it was a good level, a good match, but I wanted to finish to see, to evaluate how the match was, but I’m happy with the way I was playing.”
Krunic will now play either Sorana Cirstea or Anastasija Sevastova in the quarter-finals.
Last year’s runner-up Alize Cornet eased into the final eight with a straight sets win over Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.
Cornet, who won her first round match when fourth seed Caroline Garcia retired injured, was too consistent for Lucic-Baroni, winning 6-1, 7-5.
In the men’s draw, 21-year-old South Korean Chung Hyeon stunned fifth seed Gilles Muller from Luxembourg 6-3, 7-6 (7/1) while US qualifier Michael Mmoh upset Argentine Federico Delbonis 6-3, 6-4.
Meanwhile, Qatar Open top seed, Austria’s Dominic Thiem, won a hard-fought opening round match in Doha on Monday, beating Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy in straight sets 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.
The world number five was pushed hard by his opponent, especially in the first set where Donskoy threatened an early upset.
But he won in a tie break, before breaking the Russian’s serve twice in the second set, in the sixth and ninth games, to claim victory. AFP
Thiem, one of the players predicted to break through this year amid injury concerns for the game’s traditional big stars, hit more than 30 winners to secure his passage into the second round.
Afterwards he denied there was more pressure on players such as himself to succeed this year, because of injuries to Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray and an ageing Roger Federer.
“It was the same situation last year, and then Roger and Rafa came out like rockets and dominated the season,” the 24-year-old told reporters.
“I think it can happen the same this year. If they come back strong, it can happen the same.
“So I go into this season like I did into the last, I want to do the best for myself and also watch out that I avoid the injuries myself and don’t look too much who is out or who is in.”
Defending champion Djokovic withdrew from the Qatar Open two days before the tournament started with a persistent elbow injury.
Djokovic has won the title for the past two seasons in Qatar, beating Nadal in the 2016 final and Murray last year in a three-set thriller.
Second and third seeds Pablo Carreno Busta and Tomas Berdych play their opening round matches on Tuesday.
Carreno Busta, ranked number 10 in the world and the second seed in Doha, said the opportunities were there for other players to claim this year’s Grand Slam titles.
“If Rafa, Federer, Murray or Djokovic plays at his best level, it will be very difficult for us to win a Grand Slam,” he said.
“But if we continue improving — because I think that, for example, Dimitrov or Goffin, they are playing really good and they finish the season playing really, really good.
“Why not also me? We can do it.”