Gasquet makes early exit in Rome
The world’s ninth-ranked player, Richard Gasquet, fell to qualifier Luis Horna earlier today 6-4, 6-1 in the first round at Rome. This marks two consecutive weeks that Gasquet has made relatively early exits (for his standards). Last week he lost to American Sam Querrey on the clay at Barcelona.
Heading into this match, Horna was riding a two-month losing streak and was ranked #111 in the world. During the match, Gasquet didn’t get a single break chance and only got in 51% of his first serves.
Gasquet is the only player ranked in the top 10 to have not reached a quarterfinal at an ATP event this year. The last time he lost to a player ranked outside of the top 100, was in February of 2007 in the Davis Cup against Andrei Pavel. This can’t be a good sign for Gasquet, as he heads into the French Open as his countries greatest hope.
