A Painful Exit for Fearnley in Vienna
British No. 1 Jacob Fearnley had to walk away from his first-round match at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna on Monday after picking up an injury that left him unable to continue. The contest was already tilting against him, with Arthur Fery having broken Fearnley's serve in the second game to go ahead 5-1 in the opening set. Fearnley had briefly showed some fight, winning back-to-back games to suggest he might claw his way back into the set, but ultimately stepped to the net, shook the umpire's hand, and retired without specifying the nature of his injury.
Fery, also British, advances to the second round and will face the winner of the match between sixth seed Francis Tiafoe and Lorenzo Musetti. The matchup with Musetti carries some extra significance for Fery, who lost to the Italian in straight sets at the US Open earlier this season.
British Women Also in Action Across the Globe
Meanwhile, Harriet Dart continued a strong recent run at the Guangzhou Open in China, beating Russian qualifier Tatiana Prozorova 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 in a scrappy two-hour-and-15-minute contest. Both players struggled to hold serve throughout, but Dart was the more clinical in the deciding set, breaking three times to surge ahead 5-2 before closing it out. She progresses to the last 16.
In Tokyo, 17-year-old Mika Stojsavljevic had a difficult afternoon at the Toray Pan Pacific Open, falling 6-1, 6-2 to world No. 19 Alexandra Eala of the Philippines in just over an hour. Stojsavljevic, a former girls' US Open champion, was broken twice in each set despite receiving a wildcard into the WTA 500 event. TennisDraw users tracking British prospects this week will be watching Fery's next outing closely after this unexpected route into round two.
