Emma Raducanu has withdrawn from the Madrid Open a few hours before she was due on court for her first-round match because of an injury to her right hand.
Raducanu travelled to the Spanish capital hoping to end a run of three straight defeats and was due to start her campaign against the lucky loser Viktoriya Tomova on Wednesday afternoon.
A fourth straight loss would have constituted the worst run of Raducanu’s career but the tournament’s Twitter account disclosed on Wednesday morning that the Briton had withdrawn from the event.
She won three matches to reach the last 32 in Indian Wells last month but was eliminated by the world No 1, Iga Swiatek, and then succumbed in the first round at the Miami Open and the Grand Prix in Stuttgart.
She ran Bianca Andreescu close in a three-set defeat in Miami but Raducanu won only three games in Germany last week as she was thrashed by Jelena Ostapenko.
As a result of her withdrawal in Madrid, Raducanu, ranked 85th in the world, is likely to fall outside the WTA’s top-100 for the first time since her surprise triumph at 2021 US Open.
The 20-year-old has had a stop-start season so far because of an ankle injury and more worries over the wrist problem that ended her 2022 campaign prematurely.
