AN American tennis star has been forced to retire from the French Open after suffering a horrific injury in the middle of a match.<\/p>\n
No. 26-ranked Hailey Baptiste screamed in agony as she hit the clay off-balance and her left knee buckled underneath her on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the Sport newsletter\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
US tennis star Hailey Baptiste\u2019s left knee buckled during the French Open on Wednesday Credit: Instagram\/tntsportsus<\/p>\n
Baptiste yelled in pain after the brutal on-court injury Credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n
Baptiste was hitting an inside-out forehand off her back foot against China qualifier Wang Xiyu when the injury happened.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old fell to the ground and instantly yelled out in pain to grip her joint.<\/p>\n
She was in tears as she stayed on the court while doctors looked after her.<\/p>\n
The Washington D.C. native\u2019s father, Qasim, also ran onto the court to comfort her.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, she was able to be helped off the court as her left leg was held up horizontally.<\/p>\n
Baptiste was forced to retire as Xiyu advanced to the next round.<\/p>\n
Xiyu was serving for the first set at 5-4 before the incident.<\/p>\n
She will now qualify for the third round, where she will take on Yuliia Starodubtseva of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Trainers tending to the fallen Baptiste Credit: Instagram\/tntsportsus<\/p>\n
Medical staff eventually got the tearful Baptiste on a chair as the 24-year-old eventually retired from the match Credit: Instagram\/tntsportsus<\/p>\n
Baptiste\u2019s injury comes as the 24-year-old came to Paris on the back of her biggest career victory.<\/p>\n
She claimed a massive win over world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka at the Madrid Open.<\/p>\n
The injury to Baptiste also came hours after Czech men\u2019s star Jakub Mensik collapsed to the ground after winning a nearly five-hour match at the French Open.<\/p>\n
The contest took place in 91-degree heat as there was no shade for Mensik, who cramped during the fifth set tiebreak.<\/p>\n
Mensik was able to come through 13-11 in the breaker to take the match 6-3 2-6 6-4 1-6 7-6 in four hours and 41 minutes.<\/p>\n
Once the ball left his strings for the forehand winner that ultimately clinched the match, Mensik fell to the ground.<\/p>\n
The No. 26 seed laid on his back on the clay with his hands covering his face.<\/p>\n
Mensik was given ice and covered with an umbrella as he was finally able to get up after around 10 minutes of treatment and walked off by himself.<\/p>\n
He will have a tough battle to play in round three on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AN American tennis star has been forced to retire from the French Open after suffering a horrific injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,207087,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-607844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-the-french-open","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}