Steve Darcis, Victoria Azarenka lead injury exodus

June 26, 2013 06:08 pm | Updated November 17, 2021 11:11 am IST - LONDON

Steve Darcis

Steve Darcis

Women’s s singles No. 2 seed Victoria Azarenka and Rafael Nadal’s conqueror Steve Darcis are among the five players who withdrew on Wednesday from Wimbledon with injuries.

Belgian Darcis did not even make it onto the court to play his second round men’s singles match against Poland’s Lukasz Kubot because of a shoulder injury.

Azarenka had been scheduled to face Italy’s Flavia Pennetta in Wednesday’s first match on the Centre Court.

The Belarusian, who has reached the semifinals in her past two visits here, had fallen awkwardly in the second set of her first round match on Monday against Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal. Despite being in pain, Azarenka hobbled to a 6-1, 6-2 victory. However, she could not step onto the court on Wednesday.

Men’s singles No. 10 seed Marin Cilic was also forced to withdraw with an injury to his left knee. The Croatian had been due to play Kenny de Schepper in the second round, having beaten Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in the first.

American John Isner, who tweaked his left knee in the opening game against France’s Adrian Mannarino, retired with the score at 1-1. The tall American started his match looking in prime form, winning the opening game in less than a minute. However, the World No. 21 began clutching his left knee and minutes later after a medical timeout, retired.

The Czech Republic’s Radek Stepanek was the fifth casualty of the day as he could not shake off a thigh problem and retired against Jerzy Janowicz.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.