Foot fracture forces Anisimova out of Miami

MIAMI, Fla. – In her second career Miami Open, Florida teenager Amanda Anisimova was on a roll.

And then, she was out, forced to withdraw from a scheduled second-round match against No. 3 Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain with a foot injury.

After an impressive effort at the BNP Paribas Open, where she upset two seeds and reached the fourth round, the 16-year-old was up 3-0 in the third set over Qiang Wang of China in her first-round match.

And then, while merely taking a step to her right to field a let serve – not even running during a point – she went over on her right foot and hit the deck.

There were tears, as Anisimova appeared to grab her ankle.

To their credit, the staff and chair umpire acted swiftly to get a towel, an ice bag, an umbrella to shield her from the sun. The physio arrived quickly as well, even if the Grandstand court they were playing on is a fair distance from the rest of the match courts.

A win on adrenaline

After being taped, Anisimova carried on, although she stayed moving, and standing, on the next changeover.

She held her next service game quickly as Wang failed to even make her play, or move. And she won the match on pure adrenaline, before the damage truly kicked in.

Unfortunately for Anisimova, the verdict was a small fracture of a bone in the foot.

Given her form and confidence (and her straight-set victories over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Petra Kvitova at Indian Wells), there’s no reason to think she wouldn’t have given the reigning Wimbledon champion a battle.

But for now, she is out.