Japan’s Naomi Osaka suffered a 6-1, 6-4 defeat to Marketa Vondrousova in the third round of the Tokyo Games on Tuesday, crushing her dreams of winning Olympic Gold at home.
Osaka, who lit the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony, struggled in an error-strewn display under the centre court roof at Ariake Tennis Park and was knocked out in 68 minutes.
Vondrousova, ranked 42nd, will go on to face Spain’s Paula Badosa or Nadia Podoroska of Argentina.
Meanwhile, Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to the third round of the Olympics men’s tennis tournament on Tuesday as he avenged last month’s Wimbledon loss to Frances Tiafoe.
The Greek third seed downed American Tiafoe 6-3, 6-4 under the centre court roof at Ariake Tennis Park, where all play on outside courts was delayed an hour by morning drizzle.
Tsitsipas, who is also entered in mixed doubles with Maria Sakkari, will play France’s Ugo Humbert or Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia for a spot in the quarter-finals.
Also Novak Djokovic added another medal event to his program by entering the mixed doubles draw with Serbian partner Nina Stojanovic.
Indian campaign over
The Indian tennis team’s campaign at the Tokyo Olympics officially ended on Tuesday as Sania Mirza and Sumit Nagal could not make the cut for the mixed doubles event due to their low combined ranking of 153.
The entries were to be finalised on Tuesday morning and the cut was expected to be between 50-60. The Indians did not even have faint hopes of getting into the easiest of tennis events at the Games.
Only 16 teams play the mixed doubles event and thus winning just two matches can get a team in the medal round.
Nagal was blown away by Daniil Medvedev in the men’s singles competition, while the women’s doubles pair of Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina lost its opener from a winning position.