Next favourite crash at the Australian Open in Melbourne: Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza dropped out in the second round at temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius.
The third-placed Spaniard was defeated by Hsieh Su-Wei from Taiwan 6:7 (1:7), 4:6. By the end of the fourth day of the tournament, half of the 32 seeded players had already failed, ahead of Muguruza, Johanna Kontakt (Great Britain/No. 9) had also been hit.
Muguruza, last year’s Wimbledon winner, had not made it to the Australian Open: in Sydney she had to retire from the tournament because of leg pain, in Brisbane Muguruza gave up because of cramps.
This season, 32 players will be seated in the four majors for the last time. Starting with the Australian Open 2019, the seed lists will be reduced to 16 professionals each. In 2001, the US Open had succeeded in expanding the seed-lists from 16 to 32 players, mainly at the insistence of TV stations. The broadcasters wanted to make sure that as many stars as possible were present in the later rounds.