A hand injury has cruelled Samantha Stosur’s French Open hopes and ended her record 452-week reign as Australia’s top-ranked woman.
Stosur revealed she needed an ultrasound before sustaining a painful fourth-round loss to Latvian young gun Jelena Ostapenko in Paris.
The former Roland Garros runner-up was closing in on a fifth quarter-final appearance in eight years before fading to a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 defeat following a medical time-out after dropping the second set.
Elsewhere it was a day of upsets in the women’s draw, with seeds Garbine Muguruza Blanco (four), Svetlana Kuznetsova (eight) and Venus Williams (10) all knocked out.
Meanwhile, heavyweights Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal earned safe passage through to the men’s quarter-finals.
Stosur says her workload in Paris had perhaps been a contributing factor in sustaining the injury.
“My hand’s been sore for about three or four days, since the day I played doubles here,” Stosur said.
“Don’t know what’s wrong with it. But from 5-1 in that first set, it was just really, really painful and just wasn’t going away.
“So yesterday I barely hit and just tried to manage it, just tried to get through and did everything I could.
“But she started playing pretty well as well, so it made life extra hard.
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