British number one Cameron Norrie slumped out of the French Open in the first round to Russian Pavel Kotov.
Norrie, stuck on a sparsely-populated outside court on a cold and breezy Paris afternoon in a match delayed by rain, lost in five tight sets 4-6 6-3 3-6 7-6 (5) 6-2.
The 28-year-old, seeded 32, won five games in a row after trailing 4-1 to take the first set.
Twice Norrie led by a set but twice world number 56 Kotov hit back, taking the match to a decider in a tie-break.
Kotov raced into a 4-0 lead and Norrie was unable to peg him back as he bowed out at the first-round stage for the first time since 2020.
“I’m pretty devastated with the result, the first four sets I was in control, I had so many chances,” said Norrie.
“I didn’t play well at all but I still should have won comfortably. I felt physically good, practice has been going well. I couldn’t believe I was in a fifth set.”
Norrie was joined on the British scrapheap by Harriet Dart, who lost 7-6 (3) 6-4 to Czech 27th seed Linda Noskova.
Dart said: “I felt I played an OK match to be honest, I always knew it would be a tough match. I’m just disappointed I didn’t capitalise on some of my opportunities.”
Defeats for Andy Murray and Jack Draper on Sunday means Britain’s hopes in singles now rest with Katie Boulter and Dan Evans, who play their first-round matches on Tuesday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here