Naomi Osaka suffered an early exit at the Madrid Open with a second-round loss to Karolina Muchova.
The world number two was playing only her second match on clay since 2019 having decided not to travel to Europe last season and Czech Muchova looked much more comfortable in a 6-4 3-6 6-1 victory.
🪄 MAGIC Muchova 🪄
A third Top-10 win of the season for 🇨🇿 @karomuchova7, who knocks out the second seed to make the last 16 in Madrid!#MMOPEN pic.twitter.com/V8qZX0pcwg— wta (@WTA) May 2, 2021
Osaka battled from 3-1 behind to take the second set with a run of five games in a row but she faded after Muchova made a strong start to the decider.
Having not lost a match for more than a year prior to defeat against Maria Sakkari in the Miami Open quarter-finals, US Open and Australian Open champion Osaka has now been beaten twice in her last three outings.
