Katie Boulter falls to straight-sets defeat to Jasmine Paolini at Madrid Open
Katie Boulter’s promising start to the clay-court season came to an abrupt end with a straight-sets defeat to Jasmine Paolini in Madrid.
The Italian has considerably more experience and pedigree on clay, reaching the French Open final last year, and it showed in a lopsided match which took exactly an hour.
Sixth seed Paolini won 6-1, 6-2 to advance to the third round in the Spanish capital, having received a first-round bye.
Paolini raced to a 2-0 lead before being briefly pegged back, but after conceding serve once she raced through the next nine games as Boulter proved unable to back up her dogged three-set win over Katerina Siniakova in the first round – her first WTA win on the red dirt.
The British No 1 has played minimal matches on clay, especially during the injury-disrupted earlier period of her career, with this tournament marking just her fifth main-draw appearance on the surface. Her lack of experience told as Paolini’s variety and combination of power and delicate drop shots left her exposed.
Boulter’s powerful gamestyle means she has a tendency to overhit and she racked up errors against Paolini, conceding 21 unforced errors in the match.
From 5-0 up in the second set Paolini’s serve wobbled and Boulter took advantage, but she was unable to build on her momentum and the two-time major finalist served out at the second time of asking. She will play Greece’s Maria Sakkari or Poland’s Magda Linette for a place in the fourth round.
Brits Sonay Kartal and Emma Raducanu are in action later on Friday in the WTA 1000 event, with Kartal playing in-form Elina Svitolina, who recently lifted the Rouen Open title, and British No. 2 Raducanu facing another Ukrainian in 24th seed Marta Kostyuk.
