{"id":839868,"date":"2026-03-21T03:55:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T03:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/839868\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T03:55:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T03:55:23","slug":"katie-boulter-shows-true-colours-as-miami-open-rival-suddenly-retires-mid-match-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/839868\/","title":{"rendered":"Katie Boulter shows true colours as Miami Open rival suddenly retires mid-match | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"withoutCaption\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Clara-Tauson-Katie-Boulter-Miami-Open-6814615.jpg\" class=\"zoomEnabled\" data-img=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/72\/1200x712\/secondary\/Clara-Tauson-Katie-Boulter-Miami-Open-6814615.jpg?r=1774042317339\" alt=\"Clara Tauson Katie Boulter Miami Open\" title=\"Clara Tauson Katie Boulter Miami Open\" width=\"590\" height=\"350\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Clara Tauson retired while facing Katie Boulter in the second round of the Miami Open (Image: Sky Sports)<\/p>\n<p><a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" title=\"Katie Boulter\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/latest\/katie-boulter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> Katie Boulter<\/a> is through to the third round of the Miami Open after her opponent, Clara Tauson, suddenly retired early in the third set of their match. It\u2019s been a long day for both women \u2013 they took to the court shortly after 2pm local time (6pm GMT) and had to stop playing multiple times due to the rain. It was 5pm local time (9pm GMT) when Tauson ultimately decided she couldn\u2019t continue.<\/p>\n<p>Boulter took an early lead over the No. 17 seed but was broken when serving for the first set at 5-4. Tauson took it in a tiebreak and led by an early break in set two, but the British No. 3 stormed back to take it 6-4 and force a decider. Boulter held to go 1-0 up in the decider and had a break point on Tauson\u2019s serve when the Danish star suddenly called the physio mid-game, shaking her head and packing her bags.<\/p>\n<p>Boulter came over to speak to her rival, and Sky Sports commentators Naomi Cavaday and Jodie Burrage confirmed the two were good friends off the court. The world No. 67 then sat down next to Tauson at her bench, and they laughed together before Boulter returned to pack her own things and leave the court. The Brit is now through to the third round, where she will face either 13th seed Karolina Muchova or Camila Osorio.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s already been a successful tournament for Boulter, who avenged a previous tough loss to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the first round. Although it\u2019s not the way she would have wanted to win on Friday, Boulter also dug deep to turn things around against Tauson after blowing the first set.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI actually didn\u2019t expect it at all. I think the only time I saw her really struggling was the last game, where she was kind of rolling the serve in, and I was a bit confused, to be honest,\u201d Boulter later told Sky Sports. \u201cI wish her the best because it\u2019s really not nice to be injured, and it\u2019s not fun at all. But it was a complete battle and some ugly tennis, but it\u2019s ugly conditions as well, so you\u2019ve got to kind of find a way. Unfortunately, she couldn\u2019t finish, but it is what it is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a few frustrations boiling after the first set and I could\u2019ve easily gone down quickly after that. But I managed to regroup at 2-0, that was a huge game to go 2-1. I\u2019m really pleased with the way mentally I fought today, because it could have easily gone the other way. I feel like I just tried to stay out there as long as possible and keep fighting, and kudos to me. I mean, I managed to do that, and I got a retirement out of it. Obviously, never the way you want to win, but I\u2019m happy to be through to the next round.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"withoutCaption\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Clara-Tauson-Miami-Open-retirement-6814624.jpg\" class=\"zoomEnabled\" data-img=\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/72\/1200x712\/secondary\/Clara-Tauson-Miami-Open-retirement-6814624.jpg?r=1774042317364\" alt=\"Clara Tauson Miami Open retirement\" title=\"Clara Tauson Miami Open retirement\" width=\"590\" height=\"350\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Clara Tauson called the trainer before packing her things and retiring (Image: Sky Sports)<\/p>\n<p>The Brit is already guaranteed to pick up 65 ranking points for reaching the third round \u2013 she lost her opening match here last year, so had nothing to defend \u2013 and should jump at least a couple of places in the rankings.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s great progress for Boulter, who dropped outside of the world\u2019s top 120 at the beginning of February. She\u2019s since been back on the rise and lifted her fourth career trophy in Ostrava last month. Boulter also reached the quarter-finals in Merida but lost in Indian Wells qualifying earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere on Friday, No. 6 seed Amanda Anisimova survived a scare to beat Ajla Tomljanovic 6-1 5-7 6-4. Anisimova had a match point on Tomljanovic\u2019s serve in the second set, but couldn\u2019t take it, and the match was rained off. Tomljanovic stole the second set when play resumed, and broke to stay in the match when Anisimova served for it. But the two-time Grand Slam finalist still got the job done.<\/p>\n<p>And one year after earning her first tour-level win here as a wildcard ranked down at No. 162 in the world, teenage sensation Victoria Mboko returned to the Miami Open as the world No. 10, breezing past Anna Blinkova 6-2 6-0 to win her opening match.<\/p>\n<p><strong>EXPRESS SPORT ON FB!<\/strong> <a data-link-tracking=\"InArticle|Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DailyExpressSport#\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Get all the best sports news and much more on our Facebook page<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p> <strong class=\"wapp-head\"> Stay up-to-date with the latest Tennis news <\/strong> <a class=\"wapp-btn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/whatsapp-group-web\/4?utm_source=article_widget&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=article_widget&amp;utm_content=whatsapp-group-signup-in-article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Join us on WhatsApp<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wapp-inf\">Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. Read our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/privacy-notice\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clara Tauson retired while facing Katie Boulter in the second round of the Miami Open (Image: Sky Sports)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4105],"tags":[240376,51454,1069,10091,79,240377,1068,5838,16,15],"class_list":["post-839868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-boulter-vs-tauson","tag-clara-tauson","tag-katie-boulter","tag-miami-open","tag-sports","tag-tauson-vs-boulter","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116265152136196262","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}