Top players had mixed results as the second round wrapped up at the Mutua Madrid Open on Tuesday. Naomi Osaka and Simona Halep overcame their obstacles, while Karolina Pliskova couldn’t produce another miracle comeback and Angelique Kerber left the tournament injured.
Top seed Naomi Osaka was taken to three sets by world No.73 Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain, winning the first set in a tiebreak and the decider with a bagel, while the Japanese had her serve broken three times in the second set, 7-6(5) 3-6 6-0.
Earlier in the day, seed No.3 Simona Halep defeated last week’s Morocco Open runner-up Johanna Konta 7-5 6-1, recovering from a 4-2 deficit in the first set and wrapping it up on the fifth set point before cruising through the second set.
Karolina Pliskova, seeded fifth, gave a lot of resistance to Ukrainian qualifier Kateryna Kozlova, but it didn’t turn into another great escape for the Czech as she lost to the Madrid debutante 7-5 2-6 6-4. Meanwhile, Angelique Kerber was forced to pull out of the tournament because she injured her ankle in practice before her second-round match, giving Istanbul champion Petra Martic a walkover. The injury is not serious though, but Kerber didn’t want to play through pain with the French Open coming up.
Our photographer Jimmie48 made it to these and pretty much all the other second-round matches on Tuesday, plus he attended Kerber’s press conference.
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