Third seed Andy Murray withdrew from the ATP Barcelona Open on Tuesday to let his right elbow injury from last week properly heal in the run-up to Roland Garros.
“Under doctor’s advice I have had to withdraw from the Godo tournament due to my elbow injury. I’m going to take four or five days of rest,” said the Scot, who had tested his problem without much success on a side court at the Real Club de Tenis hours earlier.
Murray’s fitness looked questionable as he tried to serve, 72 hours after he had to take a pain-killing cortisone injection in order to play a Monte Carlo Masters semi-final against Rafael Nadal.
Photo: EPA
Murray will hope to be fit for the Madrid and Rome Masters events, which precede the May 22 start of the French Open. Taking his place in the Spanish field is German Mischa Zverev.
On the court, French ninth seed Richard Gasquet booked into the second round with a 2-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4 defeat of Juan Ignacio Chela.
Fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils, seeded seventh, reached the third round after a bye, spending two hours in defeating Dutchman Robin Haase 3-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2.
Photo: EPA
The 15th-seeded Canadian sensation Milos Raonic tamed Czech Radek Stepanek 6-4, 6-2 in his Barcelona debut to move into the second round.
Gasquet, a third-round victim last week in Monte Carlo against Nadal, fought for more than two-and-a-half hours to put out his Argentine opponent, overcoming six potentially costly double-faults against Chela.
Former US Open winner Juan Carlos Ferrero, 2001 champion in Barcelona, made a winning return in his first match since New York last autumn after undergoing surgery on his wrist and knee in October last year.
The veteran Spaniard reached the second round by beating Belgian Xavier Malisse 6-4, 6-2.
Japan’s Kei Nishikori advanced when Spain’s Per Riba retired injured at 6-2 down after the first set.
The same fate befell this month’s Casablanca champion Potito Starace of Italy, who could not go on against Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver with the score 4-6, 6-1, 2-0 in Gimeno-Traver’s favor.
Gimeno-Traver will next face five-time champion Nadal, fresh from a seventh consecutive title at Monte Carlo, where he defeated Barcelona fourth seed David Ferrer.
In other results, Croatian Ivan Dodig defeated Frenchman Vincent Millot 6-2, 6-3, while the last remaining German, Simon Greul, eliminated the only American in the singles field with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Robert Kendrick.
PORSCHE GRAND PRIX
REUTERS, STUTTGART, GERMANY
Germany’s Andrea Petkovic sobbed during a changeover, but set up a second-round clash against Jelena Jankovic after battling past Austrian qualifier Tamira Paszek 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 in Stuttgart on Tuesday.
Former world No. 1 Jankovic of Serbia found no resistance from Beatriz Garcia Vidagany of Spain, easing through in the clay-court tournament with a 6-1, 6-2 victory.
Paszek, 20 and ranked 88th, showed no signs of nerves, punishing local favorite Petkovic with a series of bludgeoning forehands to claim the first set with her stunned opponent double-faulting on set point and then sobbing.
Petkovic, the world No. 19 who was a quarter-finalist at Janauary’s Australian Open, took the initiative early in the second set with more aggressive play, but Paszek looked to have found a way back into the match taking a 2-0 lead in the third.
However, the 23-year-old roared back with a series of stinging baseline shots to win the next six games, firing a forehand down the line on her first match point after 2 hours, 17 minutes.
Fellow Germans Sabine Lisicki and Julia Goerges joined her in the next round, albeit with far less trouble.
Lisicki looked to be back to her best after last year’s injury-hit season, firing 14 aces past Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova to win 7-5, 7-6.
Goerges also advanced with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands, and will meet fourth seed Victoria Azarenka.
Australian Samantha Stosur, out to defend a bagful of points earned during her fine clay-court season last year that culminated with a French Open final, eased past Spaniard Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 7-5, 6-1.
Russian Anna Chakvetadze retired for the third straight tournament, this time against Slovakian Zuzana Kucova after collapsing in the third set.
GRAND PRIX SAR
AP, FEZ, MOROCCO
Top-seeded Aravane Rezai of France rallied to beat Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of the the Grand Prix SAR on Tuesday.
Rezai dropped serve three times in the first set, but broke on three occasions in the second to level the match. The Frechwoman saved four break points in the decider to close out the match after 2 hours, 33 minutes.
Former No. 1 Dinara Safina eased into the second round with a 6-1, 6-0 win over American Jill Craybas.
Safina struggled with her first serve, landing only 38 percent, but converted five of her seven break points to seal victory in 51 minutes.
Other first-round winners at the clay-court tournament included Lalami, Eleni Daniilidou of Greece, Anastasia Pivovareva of Russia, Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium and Alberta Brianti of Italy.
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