Bittersweet for Paula Badosa at Miami Open as she achieves career milestone despite match retirement
Paula Badosa will be ranked at a new career-high third in the world on Monday once the Miami Open is complete, despite the fact that she was forced out of the tournament due to illness.
The world number six entered her quarter-final on Wednesday as the favourite to take down American Jessica Pegula.
However, the Spaniard was unable to continue playing soon after and withdrew down 4-1 in the first set.
So sorry I had to retire today. Been struggling with illness since the last match the other day. Tried everything to recover but wasn’t enough. I’ll take some days to recover well and prepare for clay court season. Thank you 🧡
— Paula Badosa (@paulabadosa) March 30, 2022
Despite the disappointment of the retirement, Badosa’s run to the quarter-finals was already enough to see her overtake Aryna Sabalenka and Maria Sakkari in the rankings.
Moreover, she trails world number two Barbora Krejcikova by just 63 ranking points.
Meanwhile her opponent Pegula, who is currently ranked 21st on the WTA tour, has guaranteed herself a rise to at least a joint career-high ranking of 14th after the Miami Open.
Next up comes perhaps the toughest test on the WTA tour at the moment though as she takes on incoming world number one Iga Swiatek, a woman on a 15-match win streak in pursuit of the elusive ‘Sunshine Double’.
Should the Pole achieve the feat of winning Indian Wells and Miami back-to-back she would become just the fourth woman to do so.
Steffi Graf won the double in 1994 and 1996, Kim Clijsters did so in 2005 and Victoria Azarenka clinched it in 2016.
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