World Number One Ash Barty has been forced to retire from French Open due to injury.
Gatekeepers News reports that injury has forced World Number One Ash Barty to retire from her second-round match at the French Open on Thursday.
This comes after the Number Two, Naomi Osaka withdrew from the tournament, leaving the women’s draw at the claycourt Grand Slam without its top two seeds.
On Monday, Osaka the four-time Grand Slam winner announced her exit after her first-round following the decision to boycott post-match media duties citing mental health concerns.
In 2019, Australia’s Barty lifted her maiden major at Roland Garros. However, after trailing 6-1 2-2 against Poland’s Magda Linette in the 2021 French Open, the Number One decided she could no longer continue, having started the match with taping on her left thigh.
Gatekeepers News gathered that Barty who said she suffered a flare-up through her left hip during the weekend, had struggled with the injury during her opening win and later.
Barty said, “It’s heartbreaking.
“We have had such a brilliant claycourt season, and to kind of get a little bit unlucky with timing more than anything to have something kind of acute happen over the weekend and just kind of run out of time against the clock is disappointing.
“It won’t take away the brilliant three months that we have had, as much as it hurts right now.”
Gatekeepers News also gathered that the third-ranked Simona Halep, who was the 2018 champion in Paris, has also pulled out from this year’s tournament due to a leg injury.
This has therefore left the World Number Four Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus as the highest surviving seed this week.
The 25-year-old Barty said she suffered the injury during training:
“It was a small miracle that we were able to get on the court for that first round. Again, today it was no better and getting worse again.”
“I just tried to give myself a chance and see how it felt. Obviously practising we’ve had our restrictions and essentially tried to stay as fresh as possible and not aggravate it in any way, but in a match that’s unavoidable at times.
“Yeah, it got worse today and it was becoming at the stage where it was unsafe.”
Barty added that she hoped to be fit for Wimbledon which will commence in June. 28.
