Former British and world number one Andy Murray suffered a delayed defeat to Yannick Hanfmann in the Geneva Open following a weather-enforced suspension.
The 37-year-old was on the verge of elimination at 5-7 1-4 down on Monday, only for a freak weather storm of pollen and rain to force the abandonment of the match for the evening.
There would be no sensational turnaround from Murray when play resumed on Tuesday, though, as the three-time major winner went down 5-7 2-6 to the German on the clay.
Just before the heavens opened and the peculiar pollen storm called the match to a halt on Monday, Murray had double-faulted twice en route to losing serve, but he managed to hold to 15 while serving to stay in the contest.
An unforced error on Hanfmann’s first match point kept Murray clinging on, but the German rectified that mistake with an ace – just his fourth of the contest – on match point number two to advance to the round of 16.
Hanfmann’s reward will be a daunting clash with world number one Novak Djokovic, having denied Murray a reunion with the man he defeated in the 2013 Wimbledon final, and the 37-year-old was one of two Brits to bow out on Tuesday.
Following Murray’s elimination, Jack Draper – the eighth seed in Geneva – found himself up against the Czech Republic’s Tomas Machac, but after losing a nerve-jangling first-set tie-breaker, the British number two capitulated.
Machac took one hour and 47 minutes to post a 7-6[6] 6-1 victory in a match where he came through a few tricky holds in the opening set, before closing out the tightly-fought tie-breaker with back-to-back winners.
After missing a chance to break Machac right off the bat in the second set, a waning Draper quickly fell 3-0 down and was also left to rue errors and double faults in the sixth game, where Machac earned his second break of the match.
A perfect final service game from the Czech saw him bring up his first match point with an ace before converting that opportunity, earning himself a second-round meeting with Nicolas Moreno De Alboran of the United States.
Elsewhere, there was further disappointment for GB in the French Open qualifying rounds, where former national number one Heather Watson was beaten 3-6 7-5 1-6 by Croatia’s Antonia Ruzic.
In the men’s preliminary section, Oliver Crawford took the first set against Australia’s Li Tu but eventually went down 7-6 4-6 2-6, while Ryan Peniston was defeated 1-6 7-6 2-6 by the USA’s J.J. Wolf.
