World number one Ashleigh Barty is out of the French Open after retiring through injury during her second-round clash with Magda Linette.
Barty came into the tournament in great from and as one of the big favourites but struggled against Bernarda Pera in her first match and revealed afterwards that a left hip problem had flared up at the weekend.
The 25-year-old admitted it would be tough to get through more matches and so it proved, with the top seed calling it a day trailing 6-1 2-2.
Australian Barty held onto her first service game but was clearly hampered and was then broken twice in succession before heading off court for treatment at the end of the set.
She played a little more freely at the start of the second set, holding serve twice in succession, but her facial expressions betrayed the discomfort she was feeling.
After Linette held serve to make it 2-2 in the second set, Barty shook her head and put her racket away.
The defeat ends Barty's winning run at Roland Garros after she lifted the trophy in 2019 and chose not to defend her title last year.
"It's heartbreaking," she said. "We have had such a brilliant clay-court season, and to get a little bit unlucky with timing more than anything to have something 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.
"It was a small miracle that we were able to get on court for that first round. Today it was no better and getting worse again.
"I’ve had my fair share of tears this week. It’s all good. Everything happens for a reason. There will be a silver lining in this eventually. Once I find out what that is, it’ll make me feel a little bit better, but it will be there, I’m sure."
"It's something that I’ve never experienced before," said Barty of the injury. "Even chatting with my physio, not something she has seen regularly either.
"So we’ve been consulting with people all over the world to try and give us some insight into what the best ways to manage it are, and I’m confident we do have a plan. It’s just that we ran out of time here.
"It’s disappointing but not panic stations. We know what’s going on. We just need time to manage it to get back on the court as quickly as we can."
Defending champion Iga Swiatek wasted no time reaching the French Open third round as she sent out an ominous message to her title rivals with a crushing 6-1 6-1 defeat of Rebecca Peterson.
The 20-year-old needed only 61 minutes to overwhelm Peterson, the only Swede in the women's draw.
Swiatek, who took Roland Garros by storm last October to become the first Polish player to win a Grand Slam singles title, led 5-0 in both sets in a dominant display.
Even a dip in temperature on Court Simonne-Mathieu and some drops of rain could not slow down Swiatek's onslaught as she set up a clash with 30th seed Anett Kontaveit who as equally impressing in thrashing Kristina Mladenovic
Fifth seed Elina Svitolina came from 4-1 down in the second set to beat American Ann Li 6-0 6-4 while fourth seed Sofia Kenin was a 7-5 6-3 winner over Hailey Baptiste.
