Marcus Daniell forced to retire early at Roland Garros

Marcus Daniell was forced to pull out after just one game of his second-round doubles match with Mackenzie McDonald at Roland Garros on Saturday.

Daniell and his American partner were up against No 4 seeds Marcelo Arevalo from El Salvador and Croatia’s Mate Pavic. 

Arevalo and Pavic won that first game to love and at the change of ends, Daniell called for a physio.

He appeared to signal he had a problem with his right thigh and shortly afterwards confirmed that he would have to pull out of the match and shook hands with his opponents.

Daniell and McDonald won their first-round match at Roland Garros, defeating Francis Tiafoe and Dustin Brown 7-6(3) 6-3 in 79 minutes, but due to Daniell’s injury, they were unable to get into a battle with Arevalo and Pavic.

Erin Routliffe and Michael Venus both had another frustrating day on Saturday as rain once again interrupted the schedule. 

Venus and Jamie Murray’s match against Lucas Pouille and Gregoire Barrere didn’t start has been rescheduled to be the opening match on Court Simmone-Mathieu on Sunday.

Venus will be back on the same court later, weather permitting when he and Erin Routliffe begin their mixed doubles campaign against Chinese Taipei’s Chan Hao-Ching and Hugo Nys from Monaco.

Routliffe and Leylah Fernandez will complete their first-round women’s doubles match on Sunday. The No 9 seeds were down 2-1 in the opening set against the Chinese duo of Guo Hanyu and Jiang Xinyu when rain interrupted play.

Meanwhile, Venus has confirmed he will team up with Britain’s Neal Skupski for the grass court season, including Wimbledon.

Murray is the tournament director for Queen’s this year, so will miss the first two weeks of the grass court season.

Venus wasn’t keen to jump between partners during the beginning of the short grass court season and had an opportunity to team up with Skupski for the month, so took up that offer.

Skupski is ranked No 10 in the world and won the men’s doubles title at last year’s Wimbledon with Wesley Koolhof, so he and Venus will be among the favourites to win this year’s Championships.