Less than 24 hours after showing teenage sensation Gauff Coco the exit door, US Open defending champion Naomi Osaka has equally been bundled out.
Her 10-match US Open winning streak and title defence are done after she was outplayed in the fourth-round by Belinda Bencic in a 7-5, 6-4 defeat.
Osaka has been wearing a black sleeve on her bothersome left knee and was visited by a trainer after getting broken to trail 3-2 in the second set.
The result under the closed roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium on a rainy Monday means both defending champions and No 1 seeds are gone before the quarter-finals at the year’s last Grand Slam tournament.
Novak Djokovic stopped playing in his fourth-round match against Stan Wawrinka on Sunday night because of a painful left shoulder.
Osaka made her breakthrough at Flushing Meadows a year ago, winning her first major championship by beating Serena Williams in a chaotic final that devolved after Williams got into an extended argument with the chair umpire.
Osaka followed that up with a second consecutive Grand Slam trophy at the Australian Open in January.
That allowed her to become the first tennis player representing Japan to reach No 1 in the rankings.
The 13th-seeded Bencic, who is from Switzerland and has been mentored by Martina Hingis, showed again that she is a big-match player.
She improved to 3-0 against Osaka this season and now has a tour-leading nine victories over top-10 opponents in 2019.
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