Elina Svitolina enters Australian Open third round on sudden retirement from Harmony Tan

Elina Svitolina hits the forehand during her second-round match at the Australian Open. 

Elina Svitolina was almost seeing a danger to her tournament at the Australian Open Wednesday. It was Harmony Tan, who put every effort into the match until a strain in her right leg forced her to retire after a 6-3, 5-7, 5-1 score on Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park. The French star was on a verge of a true upset until her injury became too much. 

The Ukrainian managed to get through her opening round in straight sets, but the tiebreak took a lot of effort on her part to defeat Fiona Ferro. With Tan in her sights, the 27-year-old had to be careful of the French star. Tan defeated Svitolina’s former training partner Yulia Putintseva, allowing her just six games in straight sets. With a slip up on Monday, the 15^th seed knew that she couldn’t let up again. 

Svitolina started with a service to love and allowed Tan a single point before scoring the break. With a 2-0 lead, the 15^th seed rallied again on serve and finished quickly to jump further away. Tan managed to get a hold of serve under her belt, but the Ukrainian remained on cruise control with the forehand and excellent court positioning. She took the next two games briskly to earn a shot at serving for the set. 

In the sixth, she reached a set point but was foiled by a drop shot from Tan that forced deuce. Svitolina tried to drop shot on her second set point but came up short. Tan set up a smash winner and made a difficult return that earned her a break while staying alive in the set. The 24-year-old notched another one from the service scoring key winners that had Svitolina struggling to return. 

With just two games separating them, the 15^th seed knew she couldn’t waste more time and reset the board. She worked hard to get ahead of Tan for set point and on her third attempt, a line drive winner to Tan’s right made the mark to end 36 minutes of play. Svitolina was better with the first serve than her opponent but only a hair better on the unforced errors to winners ratio. 

Holding Tan back continued to be a task for the 15^th seed and on her opening serve in the second, the French star held firm against the Ukrainian to set the tone. Svitolina answered by shutting Tan out of the second and saw that it was going to take a lot to break the 24-year-old. She focused on holding her service games and wait for the moment to strike and gain the lead. It didn’t take long for Svitolina, who had a double breakpoint in the fifth and won the game on a forced error from Tan. 

The 27-year-old had a chance to go up 4-2, but two cross courts landed wide bringing Tan to deuce. It was a third crosscourt that blew Svitolina’s chance to double up by going into the net. With each player successfully breaking the other, it was Tan's first attempt to get back on track. Svitolina had other plans and broke her on deuce to try and back it up for a two-game lead. 

The forehand errors were coming to a major problem for the Ukrainian, who let too many occur and clinch the fourth consecutive break of the set. With Tan still in contention, the 24-year-old looked to make her mark and hold for the lead. Svitolina didn’t let her get that and instead broke to lead 5-4. Holding the tenth was absolutely critical for the Ukrainian but Tan was a force to be reckoned with. She pulled out all the stops to stay point to point with Svitolina to make it five-all while saving a match point. 

Tan took the 11^th that put Svitolina on the hot seat to avoid a third set with one last service. Her offense faded away in the 12^th that opened the door for Tan to take the set and force things to the distance after 58 minutes. Svitolina had 25 errors and a horrid second serve that she knew was no good to make a fight against Tan going forward. 

Tan opened with the third with a hold of serve before the Ukrainian followed up with one of her own. A strain in her right leg seemed to begin brothering the French star that led Svitolina to break in the third. She went on to take the next three straight before Tan could get a medical timeout. She had her lower right leg taped up before the sixth game got into motion. Svitolina was all over her service as she realized that Tan was no longer able to play at the same level she had the last set. 

In the seventh, Tan struggled to make a serve and sadly forced herself to retire after two hours and seven minutes, Svitolina went over to help her out to her bench before acknowledging her opponent’s strength. “It’s always horrible for any athlete to get injured during the competition and hopefully Harmony can recover,” Svitolina said during her on-court interview. “She played really well and it took me a bit of time to come back into the match and then she made it no easy for me. It was a tough one for me and hopefully, I’ll do better next match. 

She’ll go into the round of 32 facing Victoria Azarenka, with who she has a lot of experience within every aspect of the game. “We’ve played many times so we know each other’s game, so it’ll be an exciting match and looking forward to this challenge.”