Aka may retire, the master of the two is a round of tours, Wang Right is out of Xiao Zheng fights a strong opponent, and Ao Fat welcomes the derby

24/04/2025 13:04:00 pandatv

Three minutes a day, knowing about tennis in the world. Hello fans and friends, today is Thursday, April 24, 2025, and welcome to the afternoon newsletter brought to you by "Home of Tennis".

Let's start with one piece of news. This morning, Beijing time, some Spanish media broke the news that Spanish star Alcaraz will withdraw from the Madrid Masters in ATP1000, and said that Acre will hold a press conference at 12:30 local time today to announce the decision. The Spaniard strained the adductor muscle of his right leg in the second set of last week's Barcelona 500 final. Since then, he has said that he is optimistic about the injury and should be able to play in the Madrid Masters. But now, the results of the MRI may be worse than he expected, and he has to retire from the tournament in order to save next month's French Open.

Let's get back to the field. Last night, Beijing time, the ATP1000 Madrid Masters kicked off. In the first round matchup, 18-year-old Italian teenager Chyna defeated Hong Kong's Wong Chak Lam 7-6(5) 6-1 to advance to the second round of two consecutive Masters. The three veterans with the title of Masters champions, Croatian Cilic, Italian handsome Fognini, and Spaniard Busta, lost one after another and suffered a round of tours. Among them, Cilic lost to Frenchman Bond in two sets; Fognini lost 0-2 to Serbian Djere; Busta lost in three sets to Portuguese Burges.

Others: Argentine Navone beat French Cannon Perricard 6-4 6-4, Austrian Ofner eliminated another Frenchman Gaston 6-4 6-3 and Australian O'Connell beat Argentine Calabili 6-3 6-4. Frenchman Linderknecht, Mailo and Monfils, American Quinn, Argentinian Comesana and Cerundolo, Spaniard Agutte, Kazakh Bublik and Italian teenager Koboli also defeated their respective opponents and advanced to the second round.

Women's Field: WTA1000 Madrid continued the first round of singles last night Beijing time. In a matchup, China's King Xinyu wasted two set points in the second set tie-break to lose 4-6 6-7(7) to Greek sister Sakkari in the first match of the clay season.

In the other match, Russian Potapova defeated American Kruger 6-7(7) 6-4 6-2 to advance to the second round where she will face eighth seed and China's No. 1 sister Zheng Qinwen. The two have met four times before, with Zheng Qinwen leading 3-1. However, this will be the first time the two have met on clay, and the outcome is unpredictable.

Elsewhere: Canada's Andreescu defeated American Kessler 6-2 6-4 for his first win in six months. Next up, she will face No.10 seed Rybakina of Kazakhstan. Serbian Danilovic defeated former world number one and Belarusian star Azarenka 6-4 6-2 to advance to the second round against Russia's Alexandrova. In the first round of the Russian derby, the big Kudermetova defeated her sister 6-2 6-2 to advance. Next, she will face the No. 9 seed and Spain's Badosa.

Rising British star Raducanu defeated Dutchman Lamens 7-6(4) 6-4 to win the first match of the clay season. In the second round, she will face No. 24 seed and rising Ukrainian star Kostyuk. Mum Switzerland's Bencic is in hot form, beating qualifier Senmez 6-0 6-2 to advance to the second round where he will face 20th seed and rising Danish star Towson.

In the other big game, Latvian Sevastova was injured in Austin last year and made her comeback debut, beating Russia's Pavlyuchenkova 6-4 7-5 to claim her first win in eight meetings between the two sides. Next up is a derby against compatriot Ostapenko, who has just won the Stuttgart 500.

American Volinets defeated three-time champion and Czech Republic's Kvitova 6-4 6-0 to give her opponent his fourth first-round tour after his comeback. Other winners who advanced were Australian qualifier Jont, Americans Ann Lee, Pera, Parkes, Frenchman Parry, Argentine Karl, Russian Blinkova, Ukrainian Yastremska, Japanese Moe Natsu Uchijima, etc.