An upset filled Tuesday on the ATP and WTA tour
Tuesday was a wild day in the tennis world, with both Serena Williams and Roger Federer losing in their respective round of 16 matches. Serena Williams fell to Katerina Siniakova 7-6, 6-2, in the Emilia-Romagna Open in Italy, while Federer lost in his home country of Switzerland, falling to Pablo Andujar 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, in the Gonet Geneva Open.
Serena Williams was playing in just her second tournament since losing in the semi-final of the Australian Open. It was also only her third match on clay in 2021, and she leaves Italy with a 1-2 record on the surface with less than two weeks away from the French Open. After defeating Italian Lisa Pigato in an hour and eight minutes on Monday, she was unable to bring that momentum into Tuesday, falling to Siniakova in straight sets. Serena will be heading into the French Open with barely any match play in the last few months, which does not bode well in her attempt to reach the record of 24 Grand Slams.
Roger Federer came into Geneva playing only one tournament all year. His last tournament was at Doha more than two months ago, where he ended up losing in the quarterfinals to Nikoloz Basilashvili in three sets. Federer was the number one seed in Geneva this week, earning a bye in the first round. In his first match in two months, Roger Federer looked rusty, and it certainly did not help that he was playing someone who he had never played before. The combined age between the two is 74 years, yet Pablo Andujar and Roger Federer met for the first time in their careers on Tuesday. It is Andujar that can now say that he is undefeated against one of the greatest players of all time, while Federer will be low on confidence heading into what might be his final French Open of his career.
Serena Williams and Roger Federer were definitely the biggest upsets of the day, but they were not the only ones. In Geneva, Marin Cilic lost to the wild card, Dominic Stephan Stricker, while Reilly Opelka lost to qualifier Pablo Cuevas in straight sets. In Italy, it was Sloane Stephens getting a big win over the four seed Daria Kasatkina. One more upset that happened Tuesday occurred in an ATP 250 tournament in Lyon, where the 19-year-old Italian, Lorenzo Musetti, defeated seven seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the round of 32. After splitting the first two sets, it was Musetti who came out on top, taking the third set 7-5.