WTA Tour - Injured Ivanovic out of Doha: LIVE !!

Eurosport - Thu, 21 Feb 16:36:00 2008

World number three Ana Ivanovic withdrew from her last 16 match with Agnieszka Radwanska due to an injury suffered in the second round.

TENNIS 2008 WTA Doha Ana Ivanovic - 0

Click on the link below the photo for LIVE comments and scoring of Thursday's third round matches!

The Australian and French Open runner-up hurt her ankle after slipping at the baseline near the very end of her 6-3 6-1 second-round victory over Olga Govortsova.

Ivanovic closed out the victory against Govortsova after playing the final four points, but then confirmed that she was a serious doubt for the third round.

"It's still pretty painful and hard for me to step on. I'm very disappointed the way I had to end this tournament," Ivanovic said.

"I was icing my foot all night. I had to wake up every one hour so I didn't get much sleep but hopefully the team around me can help me to recover as fast as I can."

The top-seeded Serbian says she has not suffered a major tear.

"It's a strain, an overstretch of the ligaments," she said. "There's not any major tear, which is definitely good, but there are a few micro-tears there.

"I still get a lot of pain and have to keep icing my foot and keep it compressed and elevated to try to keep the inflammation down."

Ivanovic hopes to compete at the Dubai Tennis Championships next week. Because of a first-round bye, she would not have to play until Wednesday.

"That's definitely my goal but it's too early to say yet," she said. "If I can be on court by Monday or Tuesday I'd like to play but it's hard to say at the moment."

Polish teenager Radwanska receives a walkover into the last eight where she will now face fellow 18-year-old Dominika Cibulkova who stunned former world number one Venus Williams 6-2 6-3.

Second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, meanwhile, also struggled with windy conditions before falling to Austria's Sybille Bammer 6-3 7-6.

Bammer put Kuznetsova under pressure from the start, breaking in the opening game, and went on to take the set.

Kuznetsova then served for the second set at 5-4, and after holding four set points surrendered the match on Bammer's fourth match point when she netted a backhand.

In the windy conditions, play was interrupted three times during the final point by paper blowing across the court.

"I started to play better in the end, but in these conditions it was pretty impossible to play a normal game," Kuznetsova said. "Playing bad I still had chances, so this is disappointing."

The Russian considered that play should not have taken place in such conditions.

"I think so, yes," she said. "It was a few times in my head, 'Will they cancel this because this is a disaster'. I couldn't play the ball and it was embarrassing to stay there, but I was still fighting to try and get this match somehow."

Eurosport / Reuters