Canada’s Victoria Mboko suffered an unfortunate setback to her grass-court season at HSBC Championships on Wednesday (10 June), withdrawing from the women’s singles tennis tournament after coming to grief on the tricky surface.
The 19-year-old from Burlington, Ontario was in the midst of authoring a second-set comeback against Czechia’s Karolína Plíšková, after dropping the first set 6-2, when she appeared to slip and injure herself during a rally in their first-round match.
Crying out in pain moments after the fall, she was eventually able to make it back to the players’ bench under her own power, but was forced to withdraw from the match due to the incident, covering her face with a towel as she received medical aid.
Her decision to withdraw from the singles tournament also cast doubt over her continued participation in the doubles tournament, where she’d teamed up with tennis icon Serena Williams, with the U.S. star returning to the court for the first time in more than three years.
The pairing proved to be quite the dynamic duo on Tuesday (9 June), upsetting third seeded pairing Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez in a hotly anticipated first-round match that filled the grandstands at Andy Murray Arena.
Advancing to the second round with an emphatic straight-sets win, they’re currently scheduled to play Canada’s Leylah Fernandez and Germany’s Laura Siegemund on Wednesday, 10 June.
Mboko’s ability to play the match remains unclear at this time. There’s been no official announcements in regards to the match, with the tournament meant to serve as a grass-court warm-up for the season’s third Grand Slam: Wimbledon.