PARIS — Defending champion Stan Wawrinka cruised into the French Open fourth round on Friday just hours after Spain’s Rafael Nadal shockingly withdrew with a left wrist injury.
Wawrinka was hardly troubled in a 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 win over Jeremy Chardy, though he had to twice serve for the win after being broken in the 10th game of the third set.
Nine-time title holder Nadal said that a wrist problem which he has been carrying all month was to blame for his heartbreak withdrawal from the tournament, where he made his name as the untouchable king of clay over the past decade.
Nadal dropped his bombshell a day before he was due to play the third round against Marcel Granollers.
He said that he was only able to finish his previous Paris match against Argentine Facundo Bagnis after a pain-killing injection.
“Making the decision to retire from a competition which is the most important in my career . to reach that decision you can imagine how tough it was.
“All I can say is that I will not play before I have recovered entirely. It’s not like a knee – a knee can last forever. Here it’s the wrist. But I can’t have pain every time I use a forehand.
“There’s no way I can play before I can use the forehand.
“I will be working very hard to try and be ready for Wimbledon. I need a couple of weeks of immobilization.
“I hope the treatment works well. I expect to recover quick to be ready for Wimbledon, but this is not the time to talk about Wimbledon. This is part of the life and my career.”
Second seed Andy Murray put in a “half-day” on court, taming Ivo Karlovic and his legendary serve 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) to post a straightforward win after a pair of five-setters earlier in the week.
Murray got on and off court in less than two hours after his pair of marathon wins lasting more than three and a half hours each.
“The quicker you get it done, the better, especially in these events when the best of five it can go long,” Murray said. “This gives me a chance to kind of recover from the first few days, which is good.”
Karlovic, who fired 41 aces in the previous round, was limited to 14 as Murray got a grip on the biggest serve in tennis, beating Karlovic for the seventh time without a loss.
“I didn’t seem to have any lapses today but there is a little bit extra pressure because he’s such a hard guy to break,” Murray said. “I didn’t give him any break point opportunities and I had very few unforced errors. There were a lot of positives from today,.”
Other seeds followed the winning scenario, with Japan’s No. 5 Kei Nishikori going the distance to defeat Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 2-6, 6-4.
Eighth seed Milos Raonic needed almost three hours to hold off Slovak Andrej Martin 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, 6-3, with the Canadian given painkillers for a problem with a hip. French ninth seed Richard Gasquet tamed Nick Kyrgios 6-2, 7-6 (9-7), 6-2, with the Australian complaining throughout about a left shoulder injury. The 15th-seeded John Isner hammered 34 aces as he beat Teymuraz Gabashvili 7-6 (9-7), 4-6, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.
On the women’s side, second seed Agnieszaka Radwanska defeated Barbora Strycova 6-2, 6-7 (6-8), 6-2, while No. 4 Garbine Muguruza earned a 6-3, 6-0 defeat of Yanina Wickmayer.
Sixth seed Simona Halep, the 2014 finalist put out rising Japanese teenager Naomi Osaka 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
The 18-year-old, who was born in Tokyo but grew up in New York, speaks barely any Japanese, and put Halep through the wringer in the first set of a contest lasting one and three-quarter hours.
Halep, winner of the Madrid clay title three weeks ago, finally prevailed with seven breaks of serve and 23 winners.
Two seeds were knocked out as double Wimbledon winner and 10th seed Petra Kvitova lost in an upset to 108th-ranked American Shelby Rogers 6-0, 6-7 (3-7), 6-0.
Kvitova committed 36 unforced errors along with six double-faults in the subpar performance at an event where she has never excelled. Russia’s double Grand Slam winner Svetlana Kuznetsova, seeded 13th, stopped compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1, 6-4.
Australian Samantha Stosur won a battle of former finalists, beating 11th seed and 2015 runner-up Lucie Safarova 6-3, 6-7 (0-7), 7-5. Romanian Irina Begu defeated Germany’s Annika Beck 6-4, 2-6, 6-1.
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